Thursday, August 13, 2009

RIP Les Paul

It is hard to overstate the importance of Les Paul, especially in terms of pop-culture. The guy help develop and improved the single most important instrument in rock history, the solid body electric guitar.

That would have been plenty, but Paul continued to muck around, building new equipment, new effects and experimenting with the noises he could generate with his guitar, directly leading the music world into the rock era. Oh yeah--overdubs--he invented those, too.

I don't mean to suggest that if it weren't for Paul, we'd all be sitting around listening to the hammered dulcimer--someone would have done the things Paul did. It's just hard to imagine that someone could have nurtured their development as well as Les Paul did.

Fare thee well, Les


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Check out the dog laying on the lounge chair in the background.