Les Paul was a famous guitarist as well as being an originator; therefore it is only natural that Les Paul guitars would be in demand. A pioneer in the field of electric guitars since the time electric guitars had been invented was the company Gibson. It is said that it was the genius of Les Paul which found the solid body electric guitar, which at the beginning looked very strange as he had attached a piece of wood to the neck of his Epiphone guitar to reduce the feed back as he was trying to amplify the sound produced by his guitar. It was not unless and until he had attached a set of wings on to the side of the extra wood to make his guitars seem somewhat normal, that his act was free of ridicule.
The collaboration that resulted in the production of the famous Gibson Les Paul guitars was born out of necessity on both the sides. Gibson wanted to launch a solid body electric guitar in the name of an already established guitarist while Les Paul alone could not achieve the feat of launching his inventions into the market and thus, the partnership between the company and the guitarist was born. Gibson knew that Les Paul was the best guitarist of the times and so it would always be profitable for the company to launch guitars in his name, especially as he was already famous for inventing his own unique guitars sold by Leo Fender, his friend. Les Paul accepted Gibson’s terms to endorse the new guitars in his name, but made a few alterations to the designs of the instrument.
The main difference in between solid body guitars of other brands and Gibson Les Paul guitars is in the latter’s string arrangement. They are mounted “hollow body style” on top of the guitar in a Les Paul, while in other guitars, the strings pass right through the body. One thing to be noted though, is the fact that this is not something that has any effect on the sound quality of the guitar as the arrangement is simply for style alone. The flashy inserts on the neck and the headstock of the Les Paul guitars add more to the chic factor. The more weighty and thick solid body Les Paul guitars are made from the finest of woods, after all, what can be expected from a world class company like Gibson and a master guitarist who’s very invention was nicknamed “The Log”!
Ibanez and Tokai faced lawsuit when they actually copied the Les Paul guitar style from Gibson without their permission, but the dispute have only managed to make the original Les Pauls a more desirable solid body guitar for the collector. There were also a few bass guitars that were sold by Gibson for a decade from 1969 to 1979. Classic, New Century, Supreme, Standard, Studio Baritone, Melody Maker, Studio, Goddess, Menace, Special, Vixen, and Doublecuts are the main models that came out under the Les Paul endorsement and each were unique in the sound that they produced.
Author Resource:
Joe Nevak is an author writing about music related topics, and you are invited to visit his website at http://www.yousearch4.com/ covering number of aspects about musical instruments and Les Paul Guitars.
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