When someone lives to be 94 years old, especially someone who lived as full a life as Les Paul did, you usually don’t look up in the sky and ask God why he had to be taken. The thing is though, until very recently, Les was holding down a regular gig, delighting audiences at Iridium in New York City every Monday night. He continued to be a working musician almost until his dying day.

Of course Les Paul is known not just as a great guitar player, but as an innovator who made a lot of the music that we love possible. Among his many achievements, he is best known for developing the solid body electric guitar, in the form of the Gibson guitar that bears his name, and for creating multi-track recording. As if that wasn’t enough, after creating the electric guitar “that made the sound of rock and roll possible,” he developed sounds for it such as tape delay, and phasing.

Les Paul was born in Waukesha, WI in 1915. By the age of 13, he was playing semi-professionally as a country music guitar player. Over the years, he worked as a musician in radio, and backed singers like Nat ‘King’ Cole, Bing Crosby, and the Andrews Sisters. He first built “the Log,” one of the first solid body electric guitar, in 1939. In 1951 he signed a contract with Gibson Guitars allowing them to use his name on a guitar they had built according to his specifications. This, of course, was the famous Les Paul “Goldtop.” (more…)