All-Star Lineup Set For Les Paul 100th Birthday Celebration

Neal Schon of Journey, Steve Miller, Joan Jett and Joe Satriani are among the guitarists who will take part in a June 9 celebration of the late guitar legend and inventor Les Paul‘s 100th birthday.

The event in New York’s Times Square will feature the assorted guitarist and others performing with the Les Paul Trio, and the show will serve as the official kick off for the Les Paul Foundation’s year-long 100th Birthday Of Les Paul commemoration. More acts are expected to be announced for the bill in the near future. Read More

Les Paul Bio

The name Les Paul is synonymous with the electric guitar. As a player, inventor and recording artist, Paul has been an innovator his entire life. Born Lester William Polfuss in 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Paul built his first crystal radio at age nine - which was about the time he first picked up a guitar. By age 13 he was performing semi-professionally as a country-music guitarist and working diligently on sound-related inventions. In 1941, Paul built his first solid-body electric guitar, and he continued to make refinements to his prototype throughout the decade. It’s safe to say that rock and roll as we know it would not exist without his invention.

But Les Paul didn’t stop there. He also refined the technology of sound recording, developing revolutionary engineering techniques such as close miking, echo delay, overdubbing and multitracking. He also busied himself as a versatile bandleader and performer who could play jazz, country and pop.

The guitar that bears his name – the Gibson Les Paul – is his crowning achievement. It grew out of his desire, as a musician and inventor, to create a stringed instrument that could make electronic sound without distorting. What he came up with, after almost a decade of work, was a solid bodied instrument – that is, one that didn’t have the deep, resonant chamber of an acoustic guitar. Read More