One of the great musical figures of our time passed away recently. Les Paul was a master guitarist, and as an artist (together with his wife Mary Ford), he ruled the American charts in the 1950’s with hits like “How High the Moon”, “Mockin’ Bird Hill”, and “Vaya Con Dios”. I dusted off an old CD of his a week ago, and boy was I floored by his playing style, his tone and his consummate taste.

He was the pioneer of the solid-body guitar, and invented *the* guitar used by legions of greats, from Jimmy Page and Billy Gibbons to Slash. (No kiddo, Les Paul was actually the *inventor* of the guitar you’re holding!)

As an engineer and inventor, Les was also responsible for many ground-breaking innovations in the recording studio, such as multi-tracking, overdubbing (recording sound on top of sound), and various tape-based effects such as delay and phasing. After his introduction of multi-tracking, recording as we know it would never be the same again…

Goodbye and thank you Les!

And here is the link to the Jazz.com article… http://www.jazz.com/features-and-interviews/2009/8/13/guitarist-and-inventor-les-paul-passes-away-at-94

© 2009, Aji Coronel. Nyquist Recording Studio. All rights reserved. If you need to copy content, please provide the link to this original post.

No related posts.