Les Paul, legendary guitar god,dies at age 94

I’ve owned three Gibson Les Paul’s in my lifetime, and I’ve loved each and every one. Despite the weight, I believe, as a guitar player, that the sound of a Les Paul has always been far superior to that of any Fender ever made.

I met Les Paul, years ago, at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, CA, and was impressed at how happily

From the AP –

Les Paul, who invented the solid-body electric guitar later wielded by a legion of rock ‘n’ roll greats, died Thursday of complications from pneumonia. He was 94.

According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side.

As an inventor, Paul also helped bring about the rise of rock ‘n’ roll with multitrack recording, which enables artists to record different instruments at different times, sing harmony with themselves, and then carefully balance the tracks in the finished recording. […]

In recent years, even after his illness in early 2006, Paul played Monday nights at New York night spots. Such stars as Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler, Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Van Halen came to pay tribute and sit in with him.

“It’s where we were the happiest, in a `joint,'” he said in a 2000 interview with the AP. “It was not being on top. The fun was getting there, not staying there — that’s hard work.”