Les Paul
Les Paul died recently. While most currently known for his eponymous guitar models from Gibson and Epiphone, he was quite a popular musician in his time as well as the originator of technology that birthed modern music. Just watch this:
Hear all of those vocal parts? Before Paul’s use of multi-tracking the only layered vocalizations were from multiple singers. His invention allowed a single voice to be piled upon itself, each track’s like qualities stacking in a much tighter bundle than previously possible. Now listen to the guitar. Hear the wavering tone? Another innovation of Paul’s was phasing that allowed slight retardation in the timing of some of the signal that when added back to the original signal created a waving sound. This technique greatly increases the fullness of the sound of any instrument but has been greatly influential in the guitar industry. Lastly, just listen to his playing. Incredible. Fluidity with a great understanding of how the sounds would build on top of each other. These songs could be released today and, aside from sound quality issues, not be out of the main of music.
A couple interesting recollections that I found:
http://elephant-blog.blogspot.com/2009/08/anecdote-47.html
http://skolnotes.blogspot.com/2009/08/goodbye-les-paul.html
