Les Paul died yesterday, age 94. It seems for as long as I remember he held down a Monday night gig someplace in NYC, I saw him many times, he was always great. I love his old Capitol records with Mary Ford, they sound like they were recorded in outer space. I thought as a tribute I'd thrown in a couple of long excerpts from their 50's radios show (here and here),
they're quite amusing. I'm sure there'll be obits in every paper and magazine in America, I don't need to go into his history here, but take a listen to those airchecks, they're a hoot.
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What an iconic figure. Les Paul was known far and wide, but mostly for the guitar that bore his name...not for his playing unfortunately. Check out this forum:
http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/index.php
If nothing else you'll come across some great photos of all the usual suspects playing their Les Paul. I particularly liked the series of photos showing Eric Clapton playing Mick Taylor's bigsby burst as he sat in with John Mayall his old band mate and blues mentor at the Grande Ballroom. Cream was on their Goodbye Tour and had just finished up their concert at the old Olympia (hockey stadium with terrible acoustics). It was just a short cruise down Grand River to get from the Olympia to the Grande.
The reason I'm prattling on about this is because I was fortunate enough to be in the crowd at the Grande that night. I'll never forget it. Oh yeah...RIP Les Paul.
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