There will be tributes all over the web for the next few days. Would rock music as we now know it be even possible without his perfecting of the solid-body electric guitar?
Please link to the best tributes you come across in comments below, or name (and ideally link to a video of) your favourite riff or solo played on a Les Paul guitar (Gibson Goldtop not compulsory).
Elsewhere: Tim Dunlop
OK, here’s Donald Roeser a.k.a. Buck Dharma playing some riffs and solos on his Les Paul in Astronomy by Blue Oyster Cult. Other dramatis personae in the video include Eric Bloom on vocals, Allen Lanier on keyboards, Joe Bouchard on bass and Albert Bouchard on drums.
Another reason for purchasing and playing a Gibson Les Paul is that
as explained here.
Oops, 3 links.
Sorry.
I’ll see your Buck Dharma and raise it a Leslie West.
Thank you for all the soundtracks of my life, Les Paul.
Oh, and here’s Lindsay Buckingham enriching Rhiannon with his Les Paul (although most people who view this video tend to be distracted by the singer).
A goldtop may not be compulsory but oh so desirable.
Can’t do Youtube goodness being at work but early Billy Gibbons was great playing his ’59 Les Paul “Pearly Gates.”
And there is Jimmy Page famous for a Les Paul (though ‘Whole Lotta Love’ was recorded using a Tele).
Finally, Ace Frehley and his triple humbucker, smoke emitting Les Paul.
Correction. It was a Les Paul on a “Whole Lotta Love.” The Tele was mainly the first album and the “Stairway” solo.
Found this great photo shortly after posting this article:
Thanks for the BOC clip! Here’s some others I found:
Mick Ronson
Marc Bolan
Leslie West
Pete Townshend
Mick Ralphs (or is it Ariel Bender?)
Ted Nugent
Jan Akkerman
Ronnie Montrose
Paul Kossoff
Dick Wagner
les paul…tape recorders….multi track recording….the sanfrancisco tape music centre…terry riley…tape loops…fripp…one thing “leads” to another.
Absolutely, Eric. The guitar gets all the attention, but I’d say that the recording technology has made more difference to the shape of popular music.
Gret clip, FDB @3! I’ve still never understood why those original Les Paul low-impedance pickups went out of fashion? They sound frickin’ great – like nothing else, in fact.
Rock gods were his disciples but Les Paul kept playing into his 90s because music was dearer to him than esteem or royalties.
Thanks, Mr. Paul, for the music and for memories forever forged.
“Jeff Beck (The Yardbirds/solo) purchased his first Les Paul, a 1959 model, for £150 while still a member of The Yardbirds. Beck’s fascination with the guitar sprang as much from his interest in Les Paul, the man, as from his love of the guitar itself. Beck told an interviewer: “It had a deep powerful sound and you could use it to imitate just about anything – violin, sax, cello, even a sitar.”[6] Beck also used an “oxblood” coloured 1954 Les Paul Standard, with PAF pickups, from 1972-1976 and is pictured with the guitar on the cover artwork of his Blow by Blow album (1975)? (wiki)
Now we know the real reason this blog is called LarvatusProdeo… so we can habitually use the initials LP, each time channelling The Beast …. Mark’s a closet axe murderer perhaps?
For nigh on ten minutes of pure Les Paul tone induced madness there’s ‘Mama’ from Thorpie and the Aztecs live on GTK ( before there was countdown there was GTK ) … For guitar porn afficianados, note the Bigsby. ( I think I read somewhere that Thorpie had the first Les Paul in Australia, but it might have been Lobby Lloyde.)
Neil Young, here in fine form with All Along The Watchtower, live has a Bigsby on his too, as does Joey Santiago from the Pixies, who may very well take the award for <a href=the most heinous acts done most regularly to a Les Paul : see any live clip of ‘Vamos’, though in this particular one he’s beating up on a goldtop, while it’s on a stand, with a drumstick.
Missing Pixies Vamos link
Another well know LP user, J.P. Page:
On ABC radio this morning they reported the death and said that he was responsible for the development of the solid bodied electric guitar as used by Eric Clapton. Whilst strictly true we all know that Ekka is associcated with another solid bodied guitar not named eponymously for its designer. Surely there were better expamples.
patrick..well yes and no…John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers in 1966..and it was that album (the Beano cover) that actually made him initially “famous” and i think i’m right in saying he plays a les paul on it..but then again with things like this one never knows….but you are well right, there are plenty of better examples the ABC could have used..including the ones linked to here….why is it with the really important stuff the australian media always completely buggers up?
Last night on The Basement they had the extraodinarily good Albert Lee, now in his mid 60′s, who among things was Clapton’s second guitarist 79-83.
As part of the obligatory ‘tell us about your gear’ interview Albert mentioned how he early on had a Les Paul and like an idiot sold it, but that was fortunate otherwise Eric wouldn’t have given him his Les Paul.
He also said Don Everly gave him his Gibson J200 ( the black ones with the massive white pickguards)… lucky bastard.
You’re right of course Eric, I think he used Gibson in the YardBirds. But it’s the Strat he’s accociated with most of all.
It’s interesting thiat Ekka seems to have abandoned the Gibson for the Fender around the middle of the 60s. I wonder what brought this on?
Not quite that early, Patrick B. God only started being a serious Strat man post-Cream. Most of the stuff he did with Cream (and Blind Faith, iirc) was done on a selection of Gibsons.
Perhaps EC changed axes after he quit Mayall and later Cream because he wanted to explore other musical genres besides blues/rock. Was about that time too that Uncle Eric decided to spend some time up in the high country with his horses where he sustained a very nasty fall before getting on with life.
But as long as Slow Hand was dossin’ down in California, the Doobies and The Eagles were clearly not going to have things all their own way in the monster pop/rock market of the 70s.
Anyway, I think the ABC, true to its recent lack of journalistic rigour on radio, used Clapton as an example because of Ekka’s high profile. Thould should have asked Andrew Ford, imo.
I stand corrected. My knowledge of Ekka rally only starts with Cream and my main interest there was in Ginger. Back when I started listening to them (80s) the Internet didn’t exist and the album covers I had didn’t show much. I reckon that Page would have to be the guitarist who is most identified with the LP though. This is despite the fact that he used Strats, Teles, the famous twin neck and of course the Danelectro. I wonder if the memorial service will be attended by the elite (no, not the David Flint elite)?
“I wonder if the memorial service will be attended by the elite.”
In droves I suspect, PB. And tens of thousands of “Ordinary Guitarists” who’ve aped his sounds and imitated his chops for over 60 years will honour him publicly. Some legacy!
“Into his nineties, Les Paul continued to play a regular Monday night session at a jazz club in New York, where rock stars such as Bruce Springsteen and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page sometimes came to listen to him.”
~The Daily Telegraph
Re Jimmy and Slow Hand: penny for pound, fingers on fretboard, reckon Page is a more viscerally exciting guitarist than Ekka and would have been a better example on the Radio Auntie news bulletin. Stylistic differences aside, they are both maestros capable of leading a crack big band with an electric guitar, as T-Bone Walker did all those years ago. And the top shelf in this department certainly isn’t crowded.
I was chasing some New order bits to make a comment around Les Paul guitars used by incredibly talented people and got lost in the intertubes..
TripleJ 100 2009
I’m surprised there weren’t more women. Somebody should blog about that.
Darin, we did that one on another thread. One more:
Al Di Meola
two les pauls a fender and a set of maracas…who could want more
(29) Peter Green, yar. The first thing I did when I heard the news was dig out the ‘Albatross’ album (vinyl) and take it for a spin.
As the rock and roll gods would have it, last Friday night down the local front bar, where we are lucky enough to have a resident, and excellent, axe murderers outfit, Blind Dog happened to pop out Oh Well (Part 1), out of nowhere, I’ve never heard him do in the over ten years I’ve been attending that service. More than a few of the congregation knew the words and gave voice when they came around. And it was good.
Now I’m kind of wondering what this would sound like on a Les Paul…
Funny, the only time I’ve ever seen EC he was played a Les Paul (borrowed).
Hey, speaking of great guitar sounds, anybody remember this guy?
The agoraphobic’s national anthem (so it’s gotta be in my top ten!). No idea if it was played on a Gibson LP tho’.
Also, NERD ALERT!…
Here’s a link
to a somewhat superior performance of “Panama Limited” which has better audio and better camera angles. Although sadly the Hawaiian shirt makes the guy look a bit too much like Jimmy Buffett, which somewhat diminishes the impact of that haunting last line.
I linked to the other performance earlier b/c at the end of that one it has a better version of the part where the guy does the SFX of the train slowing down and the bell ringing simultaneously, which for mine is one of the best parts of the song; here it’s kinda muted, but the overall performance is sharper. Ya can’t have everything in one place. Sorry for nerding it up, but this is lovely and maybe a bit obscure; perhaps some ‘a you folks in the Oz crowd don’t know the thing, in which case it’s worth taking the trouble to share.
Whoops, there goes the alarm on my morning coffee maker, gotta go.
Eric @ 29 and Danny @ 30, I used to like Fleetwood Mac until they turned into a bunch of wankers.
It’s a pity Peter Green went crazy.
are jpz’s posts trolling or has he simply missed the point of the whole thread?
sorry jpz but if we were just posting “music we like” i could post soft machine and say something like “wonder what mike ratledge would sound like on a les paul?”
sorry, but i fail to see what you are on about?
Eric, he’s an American. He saw a chance to make a comment. So he took it.
Time to get this thread back on track.
Here’s a clip of Les Paul at his long-time regular Monday night club gig, doing an interesting cover of a song by an unlikely composer…
Enjoy…
Damn you, Harry. That’s close to the worst thing I’ve ever heard (and didn’t have a sniff of Les Paul about it, to boot).