The Life and Influence of Les Paul

Posted on 18th Aug 09 by Steve Flynn | 3

On August 13th this year the man known as The Father Of Modern Music sadly passed away. Les Paul was an inventor, a composer and a pioneer of the modern solid body electric guitar, as well as an extremely accomplished musician in his own right. 

His many innovations in the realm of recorded music (overdubbing, tape delay, phasing, etc…) Les Paul’s unique playing style set him apart from many of his contemporaries, by virtue of his use of techniques that sat easily in a rockabilly format and probably came across as almost futuristic to the casual listener.

Paul‘s first experiment with a solid body instrument was with what he called The Log. The Log was exactly what the name suggested, it was made from a piece of 4×4 lumber with a bridge, pickup, and guitar neck attached to the sawn hollow body of an Epiphone guitar (ironic as Epiphone would later become the company bought by Gibson to mass produce their “official copy” guitars, which included the ever popular Les Paul model)

The Log was, (along with Leo Fender’s and Adolph Rickenbacker’s creations around the same time) one of the first solid body electric guitars. In the early 50′s The Gibson Corporation created a solid body electric guitar using Les Paul’s suggestions. When presented with the model he was impressed with the design and signed a contract with the company, lending his name and seal of approval to the product. His contract also stipulated that he could not be seen playing anything other than the Les Paul in public. By the early 60′s sales of the Les Paul were in decline, which prompted Gibson to change the design of the guitar without Les Paul’s knowledge.

The Les Paul became thinner and more streamlined, and double cutaway ”horns” were introduced. Paul did not like the new design claiming it was not “his” guitar, and he requested that Gibson take his name from the new model. This disagreement led to the disintegration of the contract between the two (there are however, suggestions that Les Paul ended his contract with Gibson due to the fact that he was going through a divorce and did not want his wife to recieve any of the endorsement money). The new model was to become the Gibson SG. SG stood for either Solid Guitar or Standard Gibson, (depending on who you ask) and in time would become as iconic and widely used as the Les Paul model.

It wasn’t long before the original Les Paul design regained popularity due in no small part to it’s use by Eric Clapton. Paul agreed to again endorse the original design, although his own guitars usually featured modifications, which included personally wound pickups and customized switching.

It’s hard to imagine what music would be like today without his innovation, talent and natural genius.  Oh wait, maybe it’s not that hard:

You can thank Les Paul that all music didn’t end up like this:

Notable Les Paul players:

Andy Huxley of Vile Imbeciles:

Although their music may be hard to swallow for some, there’s no mistaking the rich, dynamic sound of the Les Paul in the Vile Imbeciles Death Jazz.
It is an integral part of their bizzare creations and Huxley is an impressive example of a  contemporary Les Paul player.
(Actually Huxley has handed guitar duties over to Caz Rospigliosi but still writes most of the music and the Black Beauty Les Paul is still used.)

Tad Doyle of TAD:

Tad Doyle has been known to play many guitars but it’s the SG that shone through on their particularly heavy riffs. The band were known for being probably the heaviest of the grunge bands that came out of Seattle in the 90′s and only the twin coil, overdriven sound of the SG could handle the heaviest of their monster riffage. Also the headstock from an SG is featured on the live album Live Alien Broadcasts.

Buck Dharma of Blue Oyster Cult:

B.O.C’s resident shredder, again a man of many guitars. It was of particular interest when he played a Les Paul as he was often introduced as ”The man with white suit and the Les Paul Guitar”. In this clip he is playing a beautiful Sunburst model. the ripping starts at 2:01 and again at 3:28.

Slash of G’N'R:

No article about the legendary Les Paul would be complete without mentioning possibly the most well known Les Paul player: Slash.
Through all Axl Rose’s rockstar nonsense Slash always kept cool as fuck with his low slung Les Paul, constantly smoking a cigarette and ripping out solos like crazy. It’s probably done a lot to cement the position of the Les Paul as the ultimate guitarist’s guitar that he always used one. Even when playing with a lesser band (Velvet Revolver). He’s still easily one of the greatest guitarists in history playing probably the greatest guitar in history.

Illustration by Patrick Lynch.

Tags: Andy Huxley, blue oyster cult, buck dharma, epiphone, eric clapton, g'n'r, gibson, guns and roses, les paul, sg, slash, TAD, tad doyle, Vile Imbeciles