Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009), known as Les Paul, was an American jazz, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor.

He was one of the pioneers of the solid-body electric guitar, and his prototype, called the Log, served as inspiration for the Gibson Les Paul.

[3] His licks, trills, chording sequences, fretting techniques, and timing set him apart from his contemporaries and inspired many guitarists of the present day.

[8] He is prominently named by the music museum on its website as an "architect" and a "key inductee" with Sam Phillips and Alan Freed.

[12] Paul's mother was related to the founders of Milwaukee's Valentin Blatz Brewing Company and the makers of the Stutz automobile.

[19] At age seventeen, Paul played with Rube Tronson's Texas Cowboys, and soon after he dropped out of high school to team up with Sunny Joe Wolverton's Radio Band in St. Louis, Missouri, on KMOX.

Chet Atkins later wrote that his brother, home on a family visit, presented him with an expensive Gibson archtop guitar that Les Paul had given to Jim.

He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943,[26] where he served in the Armed Forces Radio Network, backing such artists as Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, and performing in his own right.

[28] As a last-minute replacement for Oscar Moore, Paul played with Nat King Cole and other artists in the inaugural Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in Los Angeles, California, on July 2, 1944.

[29] In January 1948, Paul shattered his right arm and elbow among multiple injuries in a near-fatal automobile accident on an icy Route 66 west of Davenport, Oklahoma.

Mary Ford was driving the Buick convertible, which plunged off the side of a railroad overpass and dropped twenty feet into a ravine.

This time he created a similar prototype instrument, a one-off solid-body electric guitar known as "The Log", which was manufactured utilizing a common construction material often referred to as a "4×4 stud post", which provided a unique neck-thru design.

As a teen he had built a disc-cutter assembly using the flywheel from a Cadillac, a dental belt and other parts from his father's car repair shop.

Years later in his Hollywood garage, he used the acetate disc setup to record parts at different speeds and with delay, resulting in his signature sound with echoes and birdsong-like guitar riffs.

[41] In 1952, Paul invented the flange effect, wherein two recordings of the same sound run slightly asynchronously, causing phase cancellations that sweep through the frequency range.

[47] The name "octopus" was inspired by comedian W. C. Fields, who was the first person to hear Paul play his multi-tracked guitar experiments.

[50] When Paul used magnetic tape, he could take his recording equipment on tour, making episodes for his fifteen-minute radio show in a hotel room.

The show appeared on television a few years later with the same format, but excluding the trio and retitled Les Paul & Mary Ford at Home with "Vaya Con Dios" as the theme song.

Since Paul created the entire show himself, including audio and video, he maintained the original recordings and was in the process of restoring them to current quality standards until his death.

[51] During his radio shows, Paul introduced the fictional "Les Paulverizer" device, which multiplies anything fed into it, such as a guitar sound or a voice.

The invention allowed Paul to access pre-recorded layers of songs during live performances so he could replicate his recorded sound on stage.

The album featured songs based on Edgar Allan Poe's writing by the northeastern Pennsylvania band the Glass Prism.

[58][59] Richard S. Ginell of AllMusic characterized Les Paul's playing style with "extremely rapid runs", "bluesy" string bends, "fluttered and repeated" single-note lead guitar lines, and chunking rhythm support".

[60] Jazz guitarists including George Benson, Al DiMeola, Stanley Jordan, Pat Martino, and Bucky Pizzarelli have cited Paul as an influence on their playing techniques and styles.

[75] In 1988, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by guitarist Jeff Beck, who said, "I've copied more licks from Les Paul than I'd like to admit."

In 2001, he was honored with the Special Merit/Technical Grammy Award, which recognizes "individuals or institutions that have set the highest standards of excellence in the creative application of audio technology," a select award given to masters of audio innovation including Thomas Alva Edison, Leo Fender, and Beatles recording engineer Geoff Emerick.

[84] Three years later, at a tribute concert at the State Theater in Cleveland, Ohio, he received the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's American Music Masters Award.

[86] In 2007, the biographical film Les Paul Chasing Sound was aired on the public television series American Masters.

The premier showing was held at Milwaukee's Downer Theater in conjunction with a concert Paul put on for the Waukesha County Historical Society & Museum.

[87] In June 2008, an exhibit showcasing Paul's legacy and featuring items from his personal collection opened at Discovery World in Milwaukee.