King Of Electric Guitar

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

June 22, 1999 / 1:18 PM EDT / CBS

Jazz guitarist Les Paul is best known for inventing the electric guitar. He also is credited with inventing stereo sound, multi-track recording, reverb, and one of the most popular guitars of all time, the solid body Gibson. At 84, Paul still performs regularly at the Iridium nightclub in New York City. He stopped by CBS This Morning to talk about his life-long obsession with the guitar.

"You can love it by looking at it as much as you can by playing it. That's what you call a super thing, when you have something that's your psychiatrist, your bartender, your wife, your whole nine yards, right, that's a guitar," said Paul.

Paul was only 13 when he invented the electric guitar. "The critic said my guitar wasn't loud enough," he recalls. "So I went home, took the other half of the telephone, which was the earpiece, and put it under the string. Lo and behold, it amplified the guitar," he said. "It actually picked up the strings of the guitar. Well, that night, I just took a phonograph pick-up, jabbed it in the top of my guitar, and I went out there and the electric guitar was born," said Paul.

According the Gibson Music company, the Les Paul Model, as it was originally called, has changed little since its debut in 1952.

The Les Paul has been the driving force behind many changes in popular music. It powered the blues rock sound of the late '60s and the southern rock of the late '70s. By the '90s the Les Paul was providing signature sounds for every genre of rock from alternative to metal.

The invention defined the sounds of rock legends like Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones.

"It is a great pleasure to see these fellas, especially the old days, when they used to take and break them up. And they said, 'Les, aren't you offended when they do that?' I said, 'you look at my point of view, they go out and buy another one'."

The 1959 Gibson Les Paul model, which is considered the Rolls Royce of guitars, has been reissued. An original is now worth about $70,000.

For more on Les Paul, check out www.gibson.com or The Les Paul Pages.