The world of popular music lost one of its greatest innovators when Lester William Polsfuss, better known as Les Paul, died earlier today at the age of ninety-four from complications related to pneumonia.

It is difficult to quantify just how much we, as music lovers, owe to Les Paul. He is generally credited with inventing multi-track recording in the nineteen forties, as well as many of its essential components and improvements, including overdubbing and delay effects. Many of his processes are still relevant in today’s modern recording studios. No "less" important, Les Paul was one of the original developers of the solid-body electric guitar. He was affiliated with the Gibson guitar company for most of his life, where his namesake instrument, The Gibson Les Paul Standard, became one of the best-selling electric guitars of all-time, thanks to the patronage of major rock stars like Eric Clapton. In addition, Paul was a talented and innovative guitarist in his own right. Along with then-wife Mary Ford, Paul recorded for the Capital label, where he racked up six million in record sales and scored sixteen top-ten singles between 1950 and 1954. Paul continued to record and make regular live appearances up to the time of his death.

KindWeb acknowledges Les Paul’s significant contributions to modern music and mourns the loss of one its most iconic founding fathers.