One of the stars of the guitar world is the Gibson Les Paul Guitar. A solid body electric guitar, the partnership between Les Paul and Gibson Guitars began in the 1940s. Lester Paul was a very popular guitarist musician of the time and was well known due to his radio show. In his spare time Les Paul also enjoyed playing around with the idea of amplification of the guitar sound and dubbing of various sounds over the top of others.

Les Paul had spent some time in his home workshop experimenting with the first concepts of a solid body guitar. Originally drawn to the idea of the sustain that might come from the solid piece of wood, there was also the notion that the sound of the strings would be more pure and unaffected by the acoustics of the hollow bodied design.

The “log guitar” was Les Pauls first home-made attempt at the solid-body guitar. It was a very simple guitar that unfortunately attracted more amusement than genuine interest. Its similarity to a strung broom stick didn’t help Les Paul but he persevered with the concept and eventually put forward the instrument to the Gibson Guitar company in 1946.

Unfortunately there was not a positive reaction from Gibson Guitars and they did not take his ideas and prototype seriously. However the continued development of the solid body guitar continued on around them and Gibson Guitars were forced to take notice when Fender Guitars released the first Fender Telecaster in 1950.

The urgency of the situation for Gibson Guitars was now apparent as besides Fender there were also other Guitar production companies doing their own solid body concept work. These were National, Richenbacker and Bigsby. So in 1951, Gibson re-contacted Les Paul seeking his assistance in design and promotion of a product for them.

Things obviously began to click at this point as this team remains so well known today after well over 50 years. Because of their collaboration, the Gibson Les Paul Standard Guitar was released in 1952. Gibson Guitars and Les Paul signed an agreement where Paul would have input to the guitar as well as endorse the end product. This was a 5 year contract for which he was to receive 5% of sales.

Gibson’s first ever solid body guitar was simply named the Gibson Les Paul Standard and it was released at a price of $210. The Telecaster guitar from Fender was on the market for about $180 - $190. The Gibson Les Paul Standard had a solid mahogany body which gave it a full warm tone and this was topped with a carved maple top which gave the sound a bright clear edge. The guitar was always simply referred to as the Gold Top because of its beautiful gold finish.

The 3 way selector switch was used to control the two single coil P90 pickups that were contained in the first Gibson Les Paul Standard. There was a volume and tone control for each pickup. There was a rosewood fingerboard on the guitar which was overlayed on a mahogany neck. There were mother of pearl, crown shaped inlays as position markers on the finger board. There as also a combined mechanism which was a bridge and tailpiece that attached to the base of the guitar on the original Les paul Model. This was basically the design that Les Paul had used for the previous archtop guitars. It was soon replaced in 1953 as being not needed or wanted on a solid body guitar.

With the growing market, Gibson soon released more models of its signature Les Paul Guitar. In 1954 they produced a cheaper model targetted at the beginner market which was called the Les Paul Junior. At the other end of the range was the Les Paul Custom with its gold hardware. This was the beginning of the golden age of the rock guitar. Gibson was closely aligned with the rock genre and was favored by many rock gods of the 60’s and 70’s.