Les Paul's Major Accomplishments

Les Paul was an American Musician and inventor who was credited with the creation of the solid body electric guitar. Paul was born in Waukesha Wisconsin and learned to play three instruments by the age of thirteen. Amazed by the radio and inspired by artists heard on it young Paul was determined to be the one playing to the listeners. He dropped out of high school to play on some local radio stations and then move to New York to perform in his trio. Aspiring to be the best musician he then moved to California to play as Bing Crosby’s guitarist, a goal he eventually achieved. While in California he revolutionized the recording industry with the studio he built in the garage of his house. Paul was friends with the owners of Epiphone guitars where

The two played on many radio stations before parting ways which is when Paul put together a trio called The Les Paul Trio. The trio played in Chicago for a while and then moved to New York on the flip of a coin because it was where some of the best musicians were. The three members quickly picked up a high paying job with the chance meeting of Fred Waring who had an orchestra that was very popular on radio. Paul still wanted to be on top so he left New York to live to California and try to be Bing Crosby’s new guitarist. While playing for NBC’s radio show Paul some met Crosby and got his trio hired to play with him. Paul bought a house in California where he built a recording studio in the garage in which he could experiment with sound. His studio became famous as he could produce professional quality sounds that nobody had heard before. It was also in this studio where he met his future wife and recording partner Colleen Summer, known as Mary Ford. At his recording studio Paul worked on a solid body guitar and different recording techniques such as delay, multi track recording and, overdubbing which he called sound on sound. His first recording using multi track recording was “Lover” (1948) which Paul discarded 500 disks before reaching the sound he desired. Paul’s innovation with his multi disk recorder, able to record two tracks at a time, paved the way for 24 track recording, an industry standard of today’s recording