Les Paul, dead at 94

  • Thread starter Thread starter Harvey Gerst
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Harvey Gerst

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I'm sorry to announce that Les Paul died from pneumonia today. He was a big influence for me.
 
Wow. What an incredible loss. :(

Rest in peace, Les.

Thanks for posting, Harvey.
 
Leaving behind one of the (if not THE) greatest legacies in the entire world of music. Endless amounts of respect and condolences.
 
When he got up to the 90's...I was wondering how far he could keep going.

Man...he had a full life, no question about that!
One of the best known names in the guitar world for the last 50+ years...that's for sure.
 
He was a big influence for everybody, really. Even if you ignore his legacy as a guitarist and a performer, he can lay claim to inventing the solid body electric guitar, and inventing multitrack recording.

Either of those would be enough to lay claim to being one of the greatest musical innovators we've ever seen.

RIP, man. My roommate and I had been talking for a long time about making a weekend trip down to NYC to see him play in his club - we never got around to it, which I will regret for the rest of my life. :/
 
The slump in my left shoulder will allways remind me of the man...why did he have to make them so heavy?...anyhow Im sure he is up there with Eunice Shriver now :(
 
RIP Les, I feel lucky to be able to go home and play a guitar with his name on it.
 
...and inventing multitrack recording.

Not looking to take anything away from Les Paul...he was a monster...but technically he wasn't the one who invented *multitrack* recording as we know it. That was actually invented by Ross Snyder at Ampex.

Les Paul came up with a "multi-head" deck...but all he could do was record sound-on-sound with everything ending up as one track.
Snyder then came up with the idea of the Sel-Sync and stacking the heads (tracks) vertically.

But of course, if it wasn't for Les Paul...Snyder's light bulb may not have lit up since he was checking out what Les Paul was doing, and started thinking about how to get around the erasure issues of recording things sound-on-sound as Les was doing…and that’s when he thought about the multitrack/Sel-Sync approach.
 
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He was the original home recorder.

Yes, he was. Here's Les in his home studio, the one that started all of this. The tape recorder on the right is the one that Bing Crosby brought over in the back of his Cadillac.

les.jpg
 
Yes, he was. Here's Les in his home studio, the one that started all of this. The tape recorder on the right is the one that Bing Crosby brought over in the back of his Cadillac.

les.jpg

Story was he even ran a mic to the kitchen so Mary could layer on tracks while doing the dishes. There are a million stories.

If Miles Davis changed music five times (as he claimed and probably did) then Les changed it six.

RIP Mr. Paul.
 
I just heard at lunch time today.

Speechless.

Great pic of LP in the previous post.
 
The slump in my left shoulder will allways remind me of the man...why did he have to make them so heavy?...anyhow Im sure he is up there with Eunice Shriver now :(

He was a jazz guy, and played the guitar sitting down. I don't think it ever occurred to him that someone would play it with a strap. The weight was a big part of the reason the SG was created.

So how long before Gibson comes out with a Les Paul signature Les Paul? Oh well, one of the great ones has passed on. Think I'll play something mournful and respectful on my Les Paul tonight-sitting down.-Richie
 
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