A year without Les Paul

[Tig]

Wow, has it been a whole year since we lost Les Paul already? (August 12, 2009)

http://www.militarytimes.com/xml/entertainment/music/gns_obit_lespaul_081409/081509_les_paul_800.JPG


The Iridium hosted the Les Paul Trio every Monday night for 12 years. Since his passing on August 12, the Iridium has hosted Les Paul Mondays featuring other guitar greats filling in for the legend. Guests have included Jeff Beck, Steve Miller, Zakk Wylde, Larry Carlton, Eric Johnson, and more.
Premier Guitar has a pictorial (http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Aug/GALLERY_A_Year_at_the_Iridium_Without_Les_Paul.asp x) of the sessions.

[otaypanky]

Wow! Great Photo Tig.
What an amazing career and amazing guy. Always innovating in his thinking.
I saw him play at Fat Tuesday in NYC. From the moment his big hands wrapped around that neck it was magic. He was masterful, truly in love with the instrument and the sound of it. Les lived in the town next to where I used to live and I'd run into him occasionally at the music store or late night at the diner when he was done with a gig. Always a gentleman, friendly and approachable : ) His son Rusty plays bass and used to frequent some of the local jams. And I was lucky that his guitar tech and soundman worked on a few of my Gibsons.
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w49/otaypanky/LesPaul_2.jpg

[Tig]

Cool story! You are fortunate to have seen him play and run into him so many times. Such a class act, and a master of making clean tones sing.

(Much better than my story of when I met Alan Shepard in the men's room during the 20th Lunar Landing Anniversary!)

[kiteman]

Damn, it seems like yesterday when we heard the sad news.

[warren0728]

Damn, it seems like yesterday when we heard the sad news.

it really does....time is flying by these days....i know most of you have already seen this pic but it is a thread on les paul!

me and les at the iridium, nyc in 2004....

http://www.thefret.net/imagehosting/354730f4df2bbaf.jpg

[otaypanky]

Here's the cool thing about Les. Now I'm sure that was a special moment for Warren when that photo was taken. But look who's sportin' the big sh*t eatin' grin? Les! He loved the life, the music, his instruments, and he loved his fans who appreciated what he did for them. 'Looks like it was a special moment for him too.
Great Pic ! :dude

[Tig]

Gibson posted (http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/Les-Paul-0503-2011/) a few less known Les Paul tidbits. This one is my favorite:

He made friends with his idol Django Reinhardt.
Les Paul’s chief influencer on guitar was none other than virtuoso jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. The two met in 1945 and became close friends before Reinhardt died in 1953. When Reinhardt died, his widow was impoverished and left with no electricity or running water, not to mention any of her husband’s records or profits from his recording career. Les Paul swept in to help her and honor his hero’s legacy, buying him a proper gravestone and encouraging a publishing firm to pay Reinhardt’s wife what she was owed. “The last time I saw Django alive, we were riding in the back seat of a taxi, and he tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I could read music,” Les Paul told The Bluegrass Special. “I said, no, I didn’t, and he laughed ’till he was crying and said, ‘Well, I can’t read either. I don’t even know what a C is; I just play them.’ I talked to Django at length about his fingers. And they were open wounds. He’d soften them with powder. ’Till the day he died, those wounds never healed. When he got depressed he’d ask me, ‘Am I good?’ I said, ‘I think you’re the greatest.’”