"Les Paul, music genius, dead at 94"

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/53141582.html

He was a Waukesha native. He literally invented the electric guitar:

"As he practiced his new instrument and listened to jazz bands from Chicago over the radio, Paul noticed that an acoustic guitar, which got its amplification from the string ringing off the hollow body, could not compete for volume in a big band. It needed a boost, he thought.

"Only 13 years old at the time, he reasoned that a phonograph pickup -- the little device that takes the sound from a record and makes it loud enough to hear -- could provide the extra volume if placed under the strings and sent to a radio speaker.

"Thus was born a rudimentary electric guitar, using the cartridge and stylus from a phonograph, in 1927."

He was a master of it.

"Aside from making rock-and-roll possible with his creation of the electric guitar, Paul also contributed immensely to the advance of studio recording over the years with inventions like multitrack recording, reverb, and more than a dozen others."

After a terrible accident, Les Paul was told that he might not ever play again. He told the doctors to set his arm bones so that he could still hold a guitar and he would take it from there. And he did.

I have a buddy who collects guitars and met Les Paul a number of times. I called him to deliver the news. He said, "I'm gonna pull out one of my Les Pauls [guitars made by Gibson] and play it for awhile." I bet Les will be playing along in heaven.

Thank you so much, Les Paul.