Les Paul, father of electric guitar, dies at 94
Last Updated: Thursday, August 13, 2009 | 1:19 PM ET
CBC News
Guitar legend Les Paul plays at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York in February 2007. (Colin Archer/Associated Press)Guitar legend Les Paul has died of complications from pneumonia, his family announced. He was 94.
He died Thursday at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, N.Y., with his family at his side.
Paul is considered the "father of the electric guitar" for his invention of the solid-body instrument.
Primarily a jazz-pop musician, Paul's pioneering techniques influenced guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page.
At age 93, he still played weekly at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City.
Paul built his own solid-body guitar with amplification in 1941, because he wanted audiences to hear him better.
He was trying to overcome problems with earlier electric guitars, which were hollow-body instruments that suffered from feedback and distortion.
Paul improved the solid-body guitar over the next 10 years, until, in 1952, Gibson Guitar Corp. introduced the Les Paul model.
Paul also developed recording techniques such as multi-tracking and echo delay, and he created an early-model synthesizer.
"He's become an idol and an icon to people in the rock world, as well as people in jazz and popular music," Terry Stewart, president of the Cleveland-based Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said in a tribute to Paul last year.
Paul was an innovator throughout his life in music.
Born June 9, 1915, in Waukesha, Wis., he first began playing harmonica at age eight. As a teen, he began performing semi-professionally as a country-music guitarist and dropped out of high school to join a country band.
Les Paul Trio
In the 1930s, he started performing jazz on Chicago radio and in 1936 released a recording with blues artist Georgia White, as well as a second recording under the name Rhubarb Red.
Les Paul repairs one of the many control boards in the control room at his Oakland, N.J., home on Dec. 20, 1963. He was a constant innovator. (Dan Grossi/Associated Press)In 1938, he moved to New York with the Les Paul Trio, which he formed with Jim Atkins and Ernie Newton. Later, he moved to Hollywood, where he played with greats such as Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby.
He was already experimenting with guitars, creating a guitar he called The Log in 1939 made of a piece of lumber with bridge, guitar neck, and pickup attached.
"What I wanted to do is not have two things vibrating. I wanted the string to vibrate and nothing else. I wanted the guitar to sustain longer than an acoustical box and have different sounds than an acoustical box," he said of this invention.
He continued to refine his guitars, and in 1951 Gibson built its first model based on his solid-body guitar.
Paul also saw the potential of tape recording, a new technology imported from Germany.
He experimented in his garage with multi-tracking, recording multiple tracks of his own playing and blending them together, the first known use of this technique.
First 8-track tape recorder
With his wife, singer Mary Ford, Paul played and recorded on a series of top 40 hits during the 1940s, including How High the Moon, Bye Bye Blues, The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise and Vaya Con Dios. Paul managed the technology that featured Ford singing with herself.
Les Paul and his wife, Mary Ford, shown performing with their guitars on Nov. 5, 1951. They had a string of Top 40 hits. (Associated Press)He commissioned the first eight-track tape recorder and created techniques such as close miking — putting the mouth close to microphone to get a more intimate sound — and echo delay.
"Suddenly, it was recognized that power was a very important part of music," Paul said of the 1950s, when his inventions first were put to wide use.
"To have the dynamics, to have the way of expressing yourself beyond the normal limits of an unamplified instrument, was incredible. Today, a guy wouldn't think of singing a song on a stage without a microphone and a sound system."
An annual award in his name honours individuals who have advanced recording technology.
In 1950, he had a 15-minute radio program, The Les Paul Show, and he later was on TV with his wife in The Les Paul & Mary Ford Show.
Paul's reputation as a guitar innovator earned him a following among rock musicians such as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman and Eddie Van Halen, many of whom consulted with him on getting the sound they wanted from an electric guitar.
In 1978, Les Paul and Mary Ford were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Paul received a Grammy Trustees Award for his lifetime achievements in 1983.
Paul is survived by three sons, a daughter and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
With files from The Associated Press
