no more sustain
Crap. Les Paul died.
All the stories today are going to list the credits: electric guitars, multi-track recording, changed popular music, etc. It’s all true.
I just watched the documentary PBS did about him a couple of years ago, “Chasing Sound”, over the weekend, and was amazed. Seeing how Les played – in his nineties! – made me both want to run to the other room and grab a guitar to play, and hide my collection away forever at the same time: inspiring and humbling.
At least we’ll always have the recordings (go listen to “Lover” or “How High the Moon”; and then remember that they were recorded more than 60 years ago!), and his namesake guitars, which are beautiful instruments. Even my cheap, bolt-on neck Epiphone model (though my 60s SG is a solid stand-in).
Now I’m going to worry about two things: one, that I cursed the man to death by watching that program on Sunday afternoon, and two, that somebody’s going to sully his memory by adding him to another verse of that damned Righteous Brothers’ “Rock and Roll Heaven” song, and that sheer timing will have him sharing a couplet with Michael Jackson.
