Hey YOU!

Hey you! Young guitar player! Yes, you! Turn off that Metallica album and watch this!

Remebering Les Paul

Les Paul, guitar wizard, inventor, musical genius and local legend, died today at the age of 94.

As a guitarist, there is no way to measure the influence he had on guitar, and will always have his name listed with Django Reinhardt, Eddie Lang and even Jimi Hendrix for being among the most important guitarists of all time.

He is equally valuable outside of his guitar playing. Having invented multitrack recording and slap-back delay, even having built what would have been the world's first 8-track recording device, had he patented it, his contributions are immeasureable.

Needless to say, he was a pretty important guy. I don't have to list all his awards and contributions, because that's what Wikipedia is for. Instead, I just want to write a few comments about how I feel about what Les Paul has taught me, and his importance to how I approach guitar and music in general.

Passion doesn't always follow convention. Recorded music was still a novelty and not easily available. But young Les Paul was attracted to anything that made noise, and constantly persued that attraction.

Be inventive. When Les started playing music, there wasn't really a precedent for how the instrument was played in popular music. Eddie Lang hadn't been recording for very long, and Django was only 5 years older than Les. There was no one around in semi-rural Wisconsin to teach proper technique or complex musical ideas. Being uniquely creative, he was able to determine through careful listening how to perform the phrases and ideas he had in his head.

Originality over popularity. Numerous times over his life, Les Paul was approached by record label executives to change his style of music to be a part of the rock and roll scene, especially in the wake of the Beatles popularity. But Les' approach to music was never to create something universally popular, especially when it was imitating someone else's popularity. He wanted to play his feelings, his ideas and his imagination. 

There are so many things we can all learn from this great man. So please, in honor of a master musician and one of the most important figures in music in all time, we should not have a moment of silence for his passing, but instead, in the spirit of his love for music, turn the volume up a little higher. 

Here is a video of two of guitar's greatest players and legends, both of whom seemed to have left us far too soon.