Les Paul

Lester William Polsfuss (1915 to 2009), known as Les Paul, was an American jazz, country and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier and inventor, one of the pioneers of the solid-body electric guitar. His prototype, called the Log, inspired the Gibson Les Paul. Born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, he taught himself guitar, invented a neck-worn harmonica holder as a child and experimented with the electric amplification of instruments as a teenager. He is credited with recording innovations, among them overdubbing, tape delay, phasing and multitrack recording, and in the 1950s he and his wife Mary Ford made recordings that sold millions of copies. He is the only inductee of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.