The first guitar I ever really noticed was a Gibson Les Paul -- sunburst top, dual humbuckers -- strapped to a madman. Slash was trying to burn down a little white chapel with nothing but sustain. You could feel the sadness he felt over the death of his best friend's wife, as he wrestled screaming notes out of that axe. With his long curls whipping in the desert wind and his Les Paul slung low, he made it cry. He made me cry.
Since then, I always look to see what kind of guitar a musician is playing. It's the first thing I do. And the Gibson Les Paul is often it.
No fan of music can downplay the rock ‘n’ roll gifts coaxed from the Gibson Les Paul over the past 50 years. There is, however, doubt surrounding the amount of input Les Paul himself had in shaping Gibson's flagship model, but the man with his name on the headstock was nonetheless honored by President George Bush November 15 with the 2007 National Medal of Arts.
"I congratulate our honorees, because in your work we see the creativity of the American spirit and the values that have made our nation great," the President said during a presentation at the White House.
Paul, 92, was awarded the medal for "his innovation as a musician, his pioneering designs of the electric guitar, and his groundbreaking recording techniques that have influenced the development of American jazz, blues, and pop music, and inspired generations of guitarists," said an aide who announced the winners.
Calling to mind Les Paul is much more difficult than imagining the guitar. Though Les Paul himself has been a recording artist for decades, his legacy will be the Gibson guitar. It will be sold for decades after his death, and future musicians might play their first and last notes on a Les Paul without ever hearing a note recorded by the man himself. But, if past performances are any indication of what a Les Paul guitar can produce, Les Paul himself can be proud that, when he no longer can, his instrument will be pleasing millions.
