YEAR
1988
INDUCTED BY
Jeff Beck (The Yardbirds)
CATEGORY
Early Influences
You can’t talk guitars without Les Paul.
More accurately, you can’t talk about even recording music without Les Paul. The lifelong innovator created echo delay, overdubbing, multitracking and more. You can’t overstate Les Paul’s genius.
Les Paul
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Andy Schwartz
Les Paul is an influential jazz guitarist and best-selling pop hitmaker, Les Paul holds a special place in the pantheon of American musical greats.
As a prolific inventor responsible for the development of multitrack recording and the solid-body electric guitar, he is part of a homespun tradition of scientific wizards that includes Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison.
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