Luthier Lost: Guitar legend Les Paul passes away at 94
It’s a dark day in the world of guitar players everywhere, as legendary guitar maker Les Paul has passed away at 94.
We’ve got a few in the office here ourselves, and like most anybody who’s ever dreamed of playing the electric guitar, we’re saddened by the passing of one of music’s greatest pioneers. For those who don’t know, Gibson’s Les Paul model guitar has long been considered among the instrument’s gold standards, and has remained exceptionally popular since its debut in the 1950s.
Not just preferred by greats like Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney, its popularity on eBay has helped Gibson electrics fetch consistently high prices, and on most days lead the eBay platform in total sales for electric guitars. You can track these stats with the Terapeak guitar index, or by clicking “Electric” on this embeddable companion widget:
As with any death of a public figure, it’s reasonable to expect interest in Paul-related products will escalate this week, and there’s a bevvy of items available with his name attached to them. A 90-day Terapeak All Sites search for “Les Paul”, for instance, turns up more than 56,000 results, with many of those items being cheaper products like stickers and apparel.
Gibson will, of course, continue to produce Les Paul guitars until the end of time, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop and play a final chord for the man who fathered them.
[...] have been informed about it by the guys at Terapeak, I must admit I was taken by surprise, I didn’t expect [...]
One of the great things about Les Paul was his great sense of innovation, from his pioneering work with electro-magnetic pickups to his vision of live “Sound on Sound” recording. His creative genius in being able to take different materials and technology and putting them together and creating completely new uses for them…. ie. Military telemetry recorders into the first hi fidelity multi track audio recorders and much more. All this and a great guitarists as well. Thank you for inventing the foundation of ROCK and Modern Recording Arts. We won’t forget you Mr. Paul although we will Always fondly call you LP.