Les Paul at 100: what made his guitar so popular?

(Image credit: Getty)

published 9 June 2015

Les Paul, the pioneering guitarist, songwriter and inventor, was born 100 years ago today. Though his records sold millions, he is perhaps best known for his own brand of electric guitar, the Gibson Les Paul. The guitar is used by some of the most famous names in the music world and continues to sell strongly today.

Who was Les Paul?

Lester William Polsfuss was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on 9 June 1915. His biggest hits – including the 1951 record How High the Moon – were recorded with his wife of the time, Mary Ford. Though Paul was initially known for his jazz style, after developing the Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, he made a name for himself in the rock and roll world and even won two Grammys as a nonagenarian before dying, aged 94, in 2009. "What he was doing on those hits couldn't have failed to influence any guitarist," Led Zepplin's Jimmy Page once said, while musician Jeff Beck said he had "copied more licks from Les Paul than I'd like to admit".

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It took Paul several years to persuade guitar manufacturer Gibson to make an expensive guitar bearing his name, says The Guardian. Looking for a way to turn up the volume without compromising on the instrument's clarity, he used a piece of railway sleeper, as well as a telephone earpiece as pick-up, linked to his mother's radio, explains the newspaper. It was this creation – known as "The Log" – that would ensure his enduring legacy. When it reached the mass-market as the Gibson Les Paul in 1952, the guitar was praised for its quality and the lack of any "humming" which had been synonymous with previous electric guitars. "While Mr Paul did not invent the solid-body electric guitar, he is widely credited with having done so," says the Boston Globe. "Certainly, he did more to popularise it than any other player."

The guitar is as famous for those who played it as it is for its sound quality. According to Salon, it was Eric Clapton who started the trend when he "plugged his sunburst Les Paul into a Marshall amplifier – the first time anyone had done so for a recording and… paved the way to the next new sound". The Daily Express says the guitar has been used by a who's who of rock royalty, from George Harrison and Keith Richards to Slash from Guns 'n' Roses.

In 2014, more than fifty years on from the first Gibson Les Paul, the guitar was Amazon's best-selling electric guitar. Billie Joe Armstrong, from the pop-punk band Green Day, released his own version of the Les Paul in 2006, while Dave Grohl, former drummer of the band Nirvana and lead singer of the Foo Fighters, has played one in concerts. The legacy lives on with every new guitar sold, as Salon declares "the Les Paul and the Marshall remain rock's signature combination".