Les Paul has died

[dkerfoot]

If you have a chance, check out the documentary on his life. His ability to overdub complex songs, with each take being destructive (if you mess up the 12th part, you start all over from scratch) was simply stunning. Only an ind...ividual with amazing musical AND recording engineer skills could have done it.

A musician and a recording engineer working together would have killed each other. (Les did work with his then wife Mary Ford)

[Santa Clarita Len]

I didn't know that Les had passed away. He and his wife, Mary Ford, were one of my favorites, I believe he invented the electric guitar if my memory is correct.

[LarryG]

I didn't know that Les had passed away.

It just happened this morning. Age 94.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32403755...ainment-music/

[jking]

If you have a chance, check out the documentary on his life. His ability to overdub complex songs, with each take being destructive (if you mess up the 12th part, you start all over from scratch) was simply stunning. Only an ind...ividual with amazing musical AND recording engineer skills could have done it.

A musician and a recording engineer working together would have killed each other. (Les did work with his then wife Mary Ford)

I watched a PBS documentary last year. When they filmed it, I believe he was 90 or 91. Until that time, all I really knew about him was that he had a guitar named after him. I was amazed at how young he was when he started tinkering with his ideas for amplifying the sound of a guitar. As amazing as the invention of the solid body electric guitar & overdubbing is the accuracy of the playing & singing he did with Mary Ford. When they recorded their multiple tracks, you couldn't sense any tempo fluctuations.

Plus, the man could play a guitar. They had some footage in the PBS show of him playing at a recent special show. He seemed sharp as a tack & could still play.

[dkerfoot]

I didn't know that Les had passed away. He and his wife, Mary Ford, were one of my favorites, I believe he invented the electric guitar if my memory is correct.

My understanding is that he was one of three that "invented" it more or less at the same time and more or less independently. He did of course work with Gibson to design the Les Paul guitar. His work with multi-tracking is what was truly ground breaking. At a time when full bands would come into the studio to be recorded all at the same time, he had a true "mobile" studio and he and Mary Ford would record while traveling.

[eccentrictinkerer]

I had the priviledge of having lunch with Les Paul in New York in the early 70's. I was pulling booth duty for my company, Nortronics, at the NAB show (Nat'l Association of Broadcasters).

Our chief engineer, Joe Dundivic, had worked closely with Les on his multi-tracking experiments (Nortronics was an industry leader in the manufacture of multi-track recording heads, in fact, the consumer 8-track head format was invented by Nortronics).

It was a gas listening to these technical innovators discussing the early days of of the recording industry. (During this convention I had the honor of meeting Avery Fisher, Chet Atkins and Henry Kloss, too!)

I still smile when I hear Les and Mary playing "Mockingbird Hill". He told us that recording and most of their other hits were recorded in their tiny home studio.

[BobSch]

As of this spring I heard he was still performing once a week at the Iridium Jazz club in Manhattan.

A great musician and technical innovator.

[germdoc]

Here's a summary of his career:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/articl...l?iid=tsmodule

He was a fellow Wisconsinite and a class act all the way. Someone like Les only comes around every so often.

[newood2]

A great American inventor and innovator. A friend of mine owns one of the original left-handed Les Paul.

[Santa Clarita Len]

Many years ago it was my pleasure to see Les in Vegas perform both parts of "dueling Banjos" on his guitar and he was magnificent. The world has lost a great performer.