THE GIBSON LES PAUL GUITAR
Amazingly for all Les Paul's music inventions, multi-track recording, various effects the one he is most associated with and that has carried his name for over 50 years wasn't really one of them.
No when Les first contacted the Gibson company about a solid bodied electric guitar, his "Log" in 1941, they laughed him out of the building and kept laughing for 10 years after according the the company president.
It's three other men we have to really thank for the Gibson Les Paul, Ted McCarty, M.H. Berlin and Leo Fender.
Leo Fender, eh what ? but he's with the other lot. Yes he was but if he hadn't introduced the world's first mass produced solid body electric guitar the Fender Broadcaster in 1950, Gibson would have never felt the need to enter the solid body electric guitar scene, would have been quite happy carrying on with their hollow bodied ES range.
Ted McCarty was made president of Gibson in 1950, a shrewd businessman of some vision, one his first tasks was to come up with the companies answer to Fender's new innovation taking the music world by storm.
Along with Gibson parent company (CMI) president M.H. Berlin, McCarty's plan was for a more up market guitar compared to Fender slab of ash and maple. The idea was a carved maple top cap to the body, something Fender weren't tooled up to do.
McCarty then showed the guitar to Les Paul who approved of the design and build, seeing it as a continuation of his ideas in solid body guitar building, he signs on as a design consultant and allows Gibson to use his name on the guitar.
The Gibson Les Paul was introduced to the world in 1952, with a set-neck, a heavy mahogany body with carved maple top with gold finish, rosewood fingerboard, two P-90 single coil pickups and a trapeze tailpiece it resembled more the traditional guitars Gibson had produced over the years than the futuristic Fenders, retailing for $210.
Learn more about the Gibson Les Paul
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