Les Paul

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Les Paul (born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9, 1915) is an American jazz guitarist and inventor. He is a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which "made the sound of rock and roll possible."[1] His many recording innovations include overdubbing, delay effects such as "sound on sound" and tape delay, phasing effects and multitrack recording. In 2003, he was named the 46th best guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone. Electric guitar innovations Paul was dissatisfied with the electric guitars that were sold in the mid 1930s and began experimenting with a few designs of his own. Famously, he created "The Log," which was nothing more than a length of common 4" by 4" fence post with bridge, guitar neck, and pickup attached. For the sake of appearance, he attached the body of an Epiphone hollow-body guitar, sawn lengthwise with The Log in the middle. This solved his two main problems: feedback, as the acoustic body no longer resonated with the amplified sound, and sustain, as the energy of the strings was not dissipated in generating sound through the guitar body.

Les Paul and "the Les Paul"

In 1941, Paul designed and built one of the first solid-body electric guitars (though Leo Fender also independently created his own solid-body electric guitar around the same time, and Adolph Rickenbacher had marketed a solid-body guitar in the 30s). This prototype guitar is known as "The Log" because the solid core is a pine block whose width and depth are a little more than the width of the fretboard.[3] Gibson Guitar Corporation designed a guitar incorporating Paul's suggestions in the early fifties, and presented it to him to try. He was impressed enough to sign a contract for what became the "Les Paul" model (originally only in a "gold top" version), and agreed never to be seen playing in public, or be photographed with, anything other than a Gibson guitar. That persisted until 1961, when Gibson changed the design without Paul's knowledge. He said he first saw the "new" Gibson Les Paul in a music store window, and disliked it. Though his contract required him to pose with the guitar, he said it was not "his" instrument, and asked Gibson to remove his name from the headstock. Gibson renamed the guitar the "SG", and it also became one of the company's best sellers. It has been said that Les had ended his endorsement contract with Gibson because he was going through a divorce, and didn't want his wife to get all of his endorsement money. Later, Paul resumed his relationship with Gibson, and endorses the instrument even today (though his personal Gibson Les Pauls are much modified by him — Paul always uses his own self-wound pickups on his guitars). To this day, the Gibson Les Paul guitar is used all over the world, by both novice and professional guitarists. Also designed was the Epiphone Les Paul, with the same outer look, and much cheaper.