Last month, the world lost one of the greatest guitar innovators of all time. I am referring to Les Paul who died on 13 August 2009. This is my tribute to the great man.

We all rave on about who has been the most influential guitarist of all time. We throw names around like Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and even Robert Johnson but we forget about Les Paul.

Most people know and relate Les Paul to his solid body guitar development. It was the development of such guitars that has given rock music its direction and sound ever since. But Les Paul even did much more than this.

Born Lester William Polsfuss, June 9, 1915 just near Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the USA (that’s where the TV show Happy Days was set) of German immigrant parents. It was only later that he took the stage name of Les Paul.

Like many kids, Paul began playing harmonica at the age of eight and took up the guitar when he was older. In his early teens, he invented a neck worn harmonica holder so he could play his harp and guitar at the same time. This device is still manufactured today using his basic design.

It was when Les Paul moved to Chicago in 1934 that his music career really took off. He jammed with, played with and backed such artists as Django Reinhardt, Jim Atkins (Chet’s big brother), Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, Nat King Cole and the list goes on.

In 1945, Les Paul met Mary Ford with whom he formed a band and later married. The couple had many hits of their own.

At the height of his playing career, in late 1948, Paul broke his right arm and elbow in a near fatal car wreck. The doctors could not rebuild his elbow and told him that his arm would remain in whatever position they set it in. This wasn’t a difficult choice for Paul who chose to have his arm set at just over 90 degrees so he could still play his axe. It took him almost two years to fully recover.

During his early playing career Paul was never happy with the unwanted feedback and lack of sustain on his acoustic electric guitar. This led Paul in 1940 to build his own guitar nicknamed “The Log” which was just a piece of 4×4 hardwood with a bridge, guitar neck and pickup attached.

Paul’s “The Log” was one of the first solid body electric guitars ever built, however, Gibson showed no interest in the guitar. It was not until Fender and Rickenbacker started producing solid body guitars that Gibson joined the party, and in 1952 built the first Gibson Les Paul Standard, a gold top guitar based on Les Paul’s design. Speaking of vintage guitars, can you imagine how much one of those babies would be worth today?

In 1948 Les Paul started experimenting with multi-track recording. He originally used acetate disks, which is a type of grammar phone disc that you could record directly on to.

Not long after Ampex released the first reel to reel tape machine, Paul began using this for his recordings by simply placing a second playback head before the record/play head in the machine. That way he could record while listening to his previous recording. Through, his experimentation with the reel to reel tape machine he developed tape echo which was used widely right up until we entered the digital world. I can remember using those tape echo machines years ago. They were great and you could get a delay that lasted a week if you wanted.

Amazingly, Les Paul did not receive many awards throughout his career, although in 1988 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

So here is to Les Paul, guitarist, inventor, genius.

And just to re-cap on his amazing musical inventions - Les Paul was responsible for:

• The harp holder.

• The first solid body guitar.

• The design of Gibson solid body guitars.

• Multi-track recording.

• Multi-track tape recording.

• Tape echo.

This legend will be missed by every guitarist out there.

-Axel