Les Paul

At thirteen, he took the tone arm from his father's phonograph, jammed the heavy needle into the top of his five-dollar guitar, and filled it with Plaster of Paris to quell feedback. The guitar didn't survive, but his idea worked, essentially creating the first solid-body electric guitar. Les Paul went on to alter guitars in his quest to create the perfect sound, making one breakthrough after another along the way. Nonstop experiments in his homemade recording studio led to the invention of sound-on-sound, multi-track recording, echo, and a host of other discoveries that revolutionized the recording industry, while he and wife Mary Ford dominated early 1950s pop charts with a continual string of hits. Taken together, the enduring influence of his unique contributions to recording technology, instrument design, and American popular music are unsurpassed. He truly is the man who changed the music, and now, Les Paul tells the whole story as only he could, in his own words.