LES PAUL & VOCALISTS - The Essential Collection (2 CDs)

They don’t come much more Essential than AVID’s latest release on the Essential Collection series.Les Paul, born in 1915 was not only a superb guitar player whose prowess with the instrument alone would havegained him a place in musical history, but also an innovative guitar designer and technician. In fact he is perhaps better known as the inventor of the Gibson Les Paul solid body guitar as “modelled” by the likes of Paul McCartney!Starting his career playing a more country orientated music he moved on to his jazz style in the 1940’s playing with the likes of Art Tatum, Terry Shand and Willie Smith. CD1 features his Decca recordings as the Les Paul Trio and also as accompanist to many of the leading vocalists of the day including Bing Crosby, Kay Starr, Helen Forrest, The Andrews Sisters and Dick Haymes. As well as his guitar design innovations Les was also involved in early multi tracking techniques. We can hear the results of this interest in a large selection of tracks on CD2 wher