Today would have been Les Paul's 96th Birthday. Les Paul was one of the if not the key innovator in creating the elecrtic guitar.
Paul was dissatisfied with acoustic-electric guitars and began experimenting at his apartment in Queens, NY with a few designs of his own. Famously, he created several versions of "The Log", which was nothing more than a length of common 4x4 lumber with a bridge, guitar neck and pickup attached. For the sake of appearance, he attached the body of an Epiphone hollow-body guitar, sawn lengthwise with The Log in the middle. This solved his two main problems: feedback, as the acoustic body no longer resonated with the amplified sound, and sustain, as the energy of the strings was not dissipated in generating sound through the guitar body. These instruments were constantly being improved and modified over the years, and Paul continued to use them in his recordings long after the development of his eponymous Gibson model.Wikipedia
He lived for a long time in Mahwah, NJ and played regularly at the Iridium Jazz Club in NYC where different people would join him, including Richie.
If you watch Access All Areas during the Giants Stadium portion Richie is standing with Les over a birthday cake (Giants Stadium was June 11, 1989).
Here's google's header image.
Go Play it!!!! It's awesome.
Here are some pictures:
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