"The Day the Music Died," Les Paul Dies August 13th 2009

The Day the Music Died

Les Paul, born Lester William Polfuss on June 9th in 1915, died today August 13th, 2009. His death is the passing of the greatest legend in all of the music and recording industry.

His tinkering, begun at an early age, led him to build the first electried guitar called 'The Log' in 1941, and the electric guitar was born. In the need to electrify the guitar, he developed the steel string to solve the problem of a magnetic pickup. Because of the extra tension due to the strings, he developed the solid body guitar, versus the 'jazz boxes' used up to that point. Gibson approached Les in 1952 and that gave birth to the most iconic electric guitar of all, the 'Les Paul.'
Along the way he was playing and performing, becoming a great talent in the industry and playing with a multitude of groups including his own trio. This led to his own television show that ran for 7 years.

When it comes to recording, Les took a simple mono tape machine and tinkered with it, adding extra heads and stacking machines together. This formed the basis of todays multitrack machines, tape echo, tape delay, overdubbing, all techniques and technologies which make recording today possible.

He also developed the use of 'close miking' which uses multiple microphones and sound sources to create individual tracks which can be addressed separately. There is not a song today that doesn't use this technique.

He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005. Every audio engineer, singer, artist, performer or any one that has heard a song played, owes this man their gratitude. For those of us who work in the field, we should mourn his passing and celebrate his life. Without him none of us would be living the life we live today.

For a good look at his life, find the documentary 'Chasing Sound.'