Les Paul Guitar And Its Creator
Les Paul has become a legend in the guitar world, and he is responsible for bringing us the legendary Les Paul guitar. In the 1930s most guitars were acoustic arch-tops with fitted pickups. They tended to get a lot of feedback because of the resonance that emitted from the strings that vibrated into the open cavity of the body and the sound holes. So Les Paul got the idea of inventing a guitar with a solid body to avoid this nuisance. He called it 'the log'. This guitar was a mere 4x4 fence-post that had a pickup, a bridge, and a neck attached. He then took a saw to the body of an Epiphone guitar, and attached it to the fence-post. This formed a solid body for experimenting with his idea. And it proved to be very promising in reducing the feedback, and enhancing the sustain, due to the fact that the energy from the strings wasn't dissipated by resonance like it was with the hollow bodies.
Les Paul was a famed jazz guitarist. As he grew in popularity he was able to record records with a few very popular artists in their own right. Then he made some solo efforts as well. Then further on into his career, he married his wife named Mary Ford, and they soon became a very popular duo. He also became one of the early innovators of recording technology. He was a big part of designing equipment that enabled multi-track recording.
Early into the 50s, Les Paul teamed up with Gibson guitar to design a solid body guitar. The ideas and the suggestion came from Les Paul. And thus the legendary Les Paul guitar was born. This guitar placed the strings and the bridge mountings on the guitar top, as opposed to old 'through-the-guitar' design used by Fender. It was also offered in various types of wood finishes, unlike the car paint looks of Fender guitars.
The first Les Paul guitars featured 2 single-coil pickups. Then in 1954 we saw the second generation of Les Pauls, that were crafted with tune-o-matic bridges. Then in the year 1957, they changed the pickups to a double-coil 'humbucking' type pickup. The Les Pauls had a selector switch with three positions for the pickups. Later on another double-coil pickup, again a 'humbucking' pickup, was added as well. But they retained its three position selector switch. This resulted in creating pickup combinations that weren't available elsewhere. These guitars are very thick which makes them also very heavy.