Gibson Guitars/Mandolins have been around for almost a century and a half and there have been so many classic Gibson designs, the ES-175, ES-335, the Byrdland, the Explorer and Firebird, but perhaps none have every influenced a style of music as much as the “Les Paul”s have influenced Rock Music.

After Fender introduced the Telecaster as the first practical electric solidbody in 1950 Gibson obviously wanted to catch up. Known as a skilled amatuer luthier and innovator Les Paul entertained a collaboration with then Gibson Guitar President Ted McCarty. It seemed to be an on-again, off-again relationship which resulted in the first Gibson Les Paul Goldtop in 1952.

The Goldtop was the original design for the Les Paul because Gibson wanted a more refined, bold and beautifully designed solid body than the ordinary looking Telecaster. It was to be a higher end guitar to appeal to people looking for the highest quality workmanship and features.

But how much was Les Paul himself really involved in the actual concept and design process of the guitar. According to the book “50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul”, not very much. Although it is widely accepted that Les had suggested and pushed to get the original color gold, the only other contribution the book states Les made was suggestions for the trapeze tailpiece and adding a maple cap over the mahogany body for more sustain.

The popular scuttlebut is that Les had made some other suggestions of which most or all were rejected by Gibson, leading one to believe that Gibson agreed to the collaboration if for no other reason than to be able to add Les’ name to the guitar and be able to market it that way.

The collaboration ended between Les and Gibson in 1961, when Gibson started making a double cutaway model to compete with the other double cutaway’s on the market and came up with the Gibson SG. Apparently Gibson added Les’ name to this model as well without his knowledge and when he found out the relationship between the two was history.

Old Les had already sealed his name in stone in  pop, blues, rock and almost any other type of contemporary music though and with his name almost synonomous with electric guitars his legacy has survived well and will live on for many generations to come.

Just one thing though, the next time you see someone wielding one of these axes or you sit down to play one yourself, just ask yourself this question - How much “Les” is in that “Paul”? Maybe it doesn’t even matter.

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