Les Paul, dead at 94

  • Thread starter Thread starter Harvey Gerst
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LP ALBUMS, CLICK ON TITLE, IF EACH SONG TITLE HAD 'FULL TRACK' AFTER IT, IT SHOULD PLAY. IF NOT, IT WON'T.
 
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In his honor...I bought an 80s Hamer today off craigslist...it is a double cutaway version of a les paul...it was $50 and I think Lester would have wanted me to have it.
 
I came out of retirement just to say...

Les Paul was a giant, not only for inventing the electric guitar, not only for conceiving of multitrack recording (without which we wouldn't be here), but also for being a primo hacker of music and electronics both.

Please read the NY Times article if you haven't already. He would have fit right in with our crowd.

If I still ran this place I would have tried to make the theme black for today out of respect, but I probably would have screwed it up, so no harm done.
 
I believe he was still playing a Tuesday night Jazz gig till very recently-he was busy doing what he loves right to the end...Rest in Peace, Lester....

Correction-it was a Monday night gig-my memory is to blame........:o
 
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Anfontan said:
I believe he was still playing a Tuesday night Jazz gig till very recently-he was busy doing what he loves right to the end...Rest in Peace, Lester....
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Yes. Up until last June. Just a couple months ago.

RIP Les. We'll see ya soon.
 
miroslav said:
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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True, and he wasn't the first to make a slid body electric guitar (though he was one of the first few who made a solid body "spanish" electric guitar - prior to those guys all the electrics were slide guitars), but it does not in any way lessen his importance, because he unquestionably taught us how to USE both things, and did more to popularize them than anyone but the Beatles, who could never have done what they did if he hadn't done what he did first. Les Paul was our first teacher on how to make a pop record. Without him, nothing would be the same.

Goodbye Les, I will miss you greatly.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Thank you Les, for inventing the most beautiful guitars ever seen.
 
Man, I have this giant regret that I never went to go see him play or meet him, he wasn't playing too far from me. I saw this amazing documentary on him on PBS and it just warmed my heart to see someone with such an incredible passion for music. He will be greatly missed.
 
Lucky we had him as long as we did, and I'm kicking myself for not going to see him when I lived northeast.

That is an awesome picture!
 
Light said:
...but it does not in any way lessen his importance, because he unquestionably taught us how to USE both things, and did more to popularize them than anyone but the Beatles, who could never have done what they did if he hadn't done what he did first. Les Paul was our first teacher on how to make a pop record. Without him, nothing would be the same.
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Yes...he set the machinery into motion, and it's still going strong!
 
BeniRose said:
I saw this amazing documentary on him on PBS
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For those of you with Netflix...The PBS documentary on him can be seen online. Just search Netflix for........ Les Paul: Chasing Sound
 
Last week Les Paul died,

Friday, Gibson the worlds Tallest dog died,

Doo do doo do
(sung to the twilight zone theme)
 
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