When most people hear "the blues", the first image that probably pops into their mind is a middle aged African American man plucking away at his acoustic guitar on a porch somewhere in Louisiana. While many of the genre's forefathers may have fit that mold, it is a restrictive and inaccurate view of a diverse and rich form of music that is the root for almost all modern music. Those that maintain this stereotypical view of the blues and assume it is "grandpa music" are missing out on a lot.

Since the electrification of the guitar shot it to the forefront of three and four piece bands, music entered an evolutionary time warp not unlike that the quantum leaps in science and technology occurring at the same time.

Some of the pioneers during the 50's were B.B. King, Albert King, Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. Chuck Berry was among the first to take the blues and kick it up a notch, speeding up the tempo and creating many rock riffs and techniques that are standard vocabulary today.

By the 60's and 70's, the blues had traveled across the pond to Britain. Bands like Cream, the Who, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin all traced their roots back to the blues forefathers. Even Angus Young of AC/DC, considered metal by many(the band always maintains that they are a rock band, not metal) has a very bluesy style of playing.

By the 80's, "Blues-Rock" had become indistinguishable from "Hard Rock". It wasn't until artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan came along and took blues back to it's roots.

Some modern bands that have bluesy overtones include the Black Keys and the White Stripes.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Classic Blues Guitars 3 - The Gibson Les Paul

The Les Paul, also put out by Gibson, is another one of the "Classic Three" guitars (Les Paul, Stratocaster, Telecaster). The Les Paul was designed by Ted McCarty of the Gibson Corporation and famous jazz guitarist and innovator Les Paul. Paul had created his own "home made" electric guitar called "the long", as it was little more than a fret board attached to a piece of pine wood. Fender came out with the first commercially viable guitar called the Telecaster and suddenly electric guitars were a national craze. Gibson's final Les Paul, or LP, was far from a market copy. Accounts differ, but it was most likely influenced by the shape of Gibson's acoustic guitars.

The Les Paul comes with many different features today. Generally, all LP's have a dense mahogany core with a maple top to reduce weight and provide a nice grain for dying purposes. The early "Gold Tops" came with a trapeze style tailpiece (part of the guitar that braces the string near the tail, or rear of the guitar), bur shortly thereafter and since LP's have been constructed with "stop bars", essentially a straight piece of metal with holes in it to slide the strings through. The Gold Tops came with P-90, or single coil pickups, however most models now come standard with humbuckers that provide the chunkier sound that LP's are known for.
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