Thursday, August 13, 2009

Rest In Peace Les Paul

Today the Music world lost a great...An icon...A legend...Les Paul has died at the age of 94...And while this is me paying a small bit of tribute to the guitarist and inventor, who pioneered the design of solid body Gibson electric guitars...It's also me taking some swings at this crazy world we live in...

Why is it that Les Paul's death isn't all over the cable news networks? Why is there so little being said about a musician and innovator who did so much for the world of music?

I'll tell ya why...Because his life wasn't full of scandal...Because he wasn't a nut-job...Because he wasn't an asshole...For all the crap about Michael Jackson we had to endure...Could we please get some love for a true innovator...

In my opinion, Les Paul did far more for the music industry then that crazy ass, kid toucher. (allegedly)

He played guitar alongside the jazz greats and pop musicians, from Louis Armstrong to Bing Crosby....In the 1930s he began experimenting with guitar amplification...By 1941 he had built what was probably the first solid-body electric guitar...With his guitar and his wife Mary Ford's, vocals, he used overdubbing, multi-track recording and new electronic effects to create a string of hits in the 1950s....

His musical style touched not only jazz, but country and rock and roll...He often said, his main goal was to make people happy...

Well today is a sad day for the music world...Today that great band that plays in Heaven...(if you believe in that) has just gotten a lot better...And guess who isn't in the band with Les Paul...If you said the kid toucher, you're right....
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This is a picture of my old Les Paul...When I realized I wasn't going to make it in music, I started selling some things off...When my daughter was born I sold my '62 Fender Jazzmaster to start her college fund...When my son was born...I sold this beauty....I miss it a little more today...
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Rest In Peace Les Paul.
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Later, The Beeze.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good tribute Beeze. Not be a guitar player, I knew of him as an inventor, thus (shame on me), I didn't realize how good of a player he was.

NBC had a good piece on him yesterday ... and mentioned a NYC club he played every Monday (until a few months ago).

3rdStoneFromTheSun said...

the man gave so much

I'll never forget him

The Beeze (aka: Tim McNeeley) said...

Thanks for reading guys...Les Paul was a giant in the music industry...I saw that piece NBC did...it was nice.

EK said...

Thank you for voicing my (and I am sure many other peoples') thoughts. Well Done.