Les Paul: Hall of Fame!

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 15 May 2005 11:46 pm

Les Paul just got inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, for the solid-body guitar. Leo Fender is mentioned, but not Paul Bigsby. Les has still got his sense of humor at age 89: "I designed some amps that were pit bulls, and when I put my speaker beside a sax player, he reacted like he had a heart attack. And we could walk all over the rhythm section."

"We had a knob," he said, "and all we had to do was turn it." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/15/AR2005051500649.html

Burr Oxley · Post by **Burr Oxley** » 19 May 2005 1:17 pm

I'm surprised that nobody has responded to your message, David.

If it weren't for Les Paul's pioneering in multi-track recording, heaven only knows in what direction music would have evolved.

OTOH, with "hip-hop," "rap," and "heavy metal," maybe Les should have left well enough alone? (Just kidding. He's an all-time favorite of mine!)

Les Paul rocks!

Larry Robbins · Post by **Larry Robbins** » 19 May 2005 1:34 pm

Les Paul! its about time he got into that Org..!He invented many things we all take for granted, and his playing!!....Remember those two albums he did with CHET?...Still two of my favorites to this day!

As Les would say...."Please give my love to Nell!!"

Burr Oxley · Post by **Burr Oxley** » 19 May 2005 6:44 pm

What a delight it was to hear those two incomparable guitar legends together. I heard somewhere, though, that on the second album, there was friction between the two. Might have been in the Les Paul biography about 14 years ago that I read that.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 19 May 2005 9:48 pm

I think this is rightful. No disrespect to Paul Bigsby or Leo Fender at all, but Les' 1941 "Log" guitar, made off-hours at the Epiphone plant, far preceded any solid body spanish guitar made by either of them, I believe. I thought Les had already been inducted into this hall-of-fame a few years ago, but perhaps that was something else related to his first multi-track recorder.

Chester and Lester - what great records. Friction, you say? Among Musicians? Impossible!