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hi this is Keith Williams welcome to

five watt world where we're interested

in helping you get the most music from

the least gear which guitarists that use

the Les Paul had the biggest impact on

the music world and by extension on our

world as musicians

there are guitarists and guitars that

left the world a different place that

changed what we thought music could do

or how it could sound or how it could

make us feel

I've always been interested in the

history of these iconic players and

instruments because of the impact that

they've had

I'm always trying to find the before and

after moments the moments after which

the music and the culture were never

quite the same again

without knowing it I've been flirting

with this list of who I think the most

important players and instruments are in

each category when I thought about

making one of these videos it was clear

to me that I needed to start with the

Gibson Les Paul Standard and Customs it

would be easy to do a top 20 or maybe

even a top 50 list of important Les Paul

players but I wanted to wrestle with who

I think are the most important the ones

that change the world so I set a limit

of 10 bust assonable mentions remember

that these aren't necessarily my

favorite players though my favorites are

in here but are the ones that I think

had the biggest impact playing a Les

Paul

you may well disagree I wouldn't be

surprised in the least and I'm sort of

counting on it but let's start this

conversation so I'll go first

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these really could be in any order but

let's count them down to keep track of

where we are number 10. clearly this

list has to start with Les Paul himself

there is much debate about whether less

cooked up the guitar design or whether

he lurked with directly with Gibson to

finish the design that would carry his

name to this day Lester William paulfes

who would later take the stage name Les

Paul was a massive star in the late 40s

and 50s he had numerous hit records and

even had a popular television program

broadcast from his home with his wife

Mary Ford from 52-54 perfect timing for

the promotion of the guitar that wore

his name that was released in 1952. by

the time their marriage ended at the end

of the decade rock and roll had eclipsed

their popular

harmonized guitars and vocals their Fame

lasted throughout the first decade of

the Les Paul Standard and custom and it

put the new guitar design in front of

thousands of professionals and wannabe

guitarists alike

number nine many of the later Heroes on

this list were heavily influenced by

Freddie King's 1961 instrumental album

let's hide away and dance away

King was pictured on the album holding a

1954 gold top but it can be seen more

clearly on the cover of Freddie King

Blues Guitar Hero

Eric Clapton said he went looking to buy

his Les Paul because of King's stinging

tone clear and articulate with plenty of

bite

whether you know it or not much of the

Blues vocabulary we play today can be

traced back to Freddy King

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number eight this one's a bit of a cheat

but in the best possible spirit I have

to list the Irish Hard Rock Band Thin

Lizzy like the Allman Brothers they set

the bar for harmony guitar parts for all

that came after sneaking them in here

also lets me mention four Les Paul

players of note that were in the band at

one point or another

John Sykes

Gary Moore

Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson

the Incarnation with Robertson and

Gorham released five Studio albums and

one live album All of which reached the

top 10 UK charts before Robertson left

and more rejoined the band

then Lizzie was a big part of my musical

teen years 1976's release jailbreak

being the soundtrack for me driving beat

up cars too fast through the small town

where I grew up the boys are back in

town playing on repeat

I understand from colleagues in the UK

that thin Lizzy's influence there may

have been even greater during their

pivotal 1970s when hard rock ruled An

Almighty Les Paul's walk to the Earth

unchallenged number seven

Journey's Neil Schoen was a devout user

of Les Paul's in the main years of that

worldwide hit-making machine

as such he likely put the sound of a Les

Paul on more radios than perhaps any

other player of the guitar

it is a gross understatement to say that

Shone used many different Les Paul's in

July of 2021 Heritage auctions sold 112

of his more than 800 instrument

collection because his fifteen thousand

square foot storage facility was out of

room

included in that sale were a number of

late 50s Les Paul's along with guitars

he'd used on the road

one of the guitars sold then was a black

77 Les Paul Pro that enjoyed many

different pickup combinations over the

years with a variety of tremolo Bridges

and can be seen in clips of the live

show in 81 with a P90 in the neck

shone's highly melodic and singable

soloing style along with his more

complex Harmony in his songwriting

helped Propel the band to the Top of the

Rock charts

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number six slash

picture this it's 1987 and Gibson is by

most any opinion on the ropes unable to

come along with the super Stratton hair

metal days of the mid 80s the company

was looking back to their days of the

glory in the 50s and not yet doing it

very well

Along Comes a curly headed top hat

wearing nose ring sporting rocker

succinctly named slash Guns and Roses

injected a harder Edge into the music

and there was Slash has Les Paul slung

low like the stage Warriors from decades

before wielding the original weapon of

choice the Les Paul

many have argued including me that his

use of Les Paul quite literally saved

the company

the irony is that the guitar he used to

record the majority of Appetite for

Destruction was actually a copy of the

59 Les Paul that had been built by West

Coast luthier Chris derrig

and while we're at it Nashville's

session guitarist Justin Ostrander

reminded me that if you close your eyes

and take away all the glitz of the show

you'll remember that slash is a very

talented soloist with a wonderful sense

of Melody he certainly sent an entire

generation reaching for Les Paul's my

buddy David Barber of Barber Electronics

said he remembers watching guitar stores

loaded with super strats slowly giving

up more and more floor space to Les

Paul's in the wake of gnr's success

I discovered artists Works about 10

years ago taking Guthrie traps electric

country guitar course it completely

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taking courses with artist Works opened

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for their support in making this video

number five Randy Rhodes

Randy Rhodes's 1974 white Les Paul

Custom was bought for him by his

bandmates when he was in the band Quiet

Riot as a Norland era Les Paul Custom

from the early 70s it had the mahogany

and maple sandwich body of the time and

a carved Maple top

white when Knew by the time Randy was

playing the guitar the Finish had

yellowed to the color of Irish butter

Randy made a few small cosmetic changes

to the guitar substituting shalers for

the Grover tuners and swapping out the

toggle switch plate finally he had his

name engraved on the pickguard the

pickups at the time would have been the

custom t-buckers so named for the

t-shaped tool markers made in the

forward bobbin

The Story Goes that when he auditioned

for Ozzy Osbourne Ozzy gave him the gig

without hearing a single note as he

watched Randy pull the white custom out

of its case

Rhodes brought a level of guitar

knowledge to the Hard Rock world that

was rarely there before he famously took

a guitar lesson with local teachers in

each City the band visited on tour his

background playing classical guitar can

be seen in his thumb behind the neck

left-hand position

interestingly on the intro for diary for

a Madman Rhodes plays the chords used in

classical guitar composer Leo browers

Etude number six I learned the piece in

college and it played bits of it in

videos after which I'm generally accused

of copying it from roads but Rhodes had

capped the changes from Brower great

stuff from a hard rock legend

number four Dwayne Allman

I've lost track of the number of players

that cite the Allman Brothers album live

at the Fillmore East as a primary

influence known for playing Les Paul's

Duane actually used three different

guitars throughout his career he bought

his first a 57 gold Top early in 1969

and it was the guitar on which he

learned and honed his slide style he

played the 57 on the first two Allman

Brothers records and it's the one used

on Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominos

Layla and other love song sessions

in September of 1970 Dwayne traded the

gold top for a 59 Cherry burst after

first swapping out the pickups between

the two guitars

it is that guitar that is heard on live

at the Fillmore East but in June of 71

Guitar Dealer Kurt linhoff sold Dwayne a

59 with a much darker burst top that

would be Dwayne's primary instrument

until his death in October of 71. the

guitars were brought together for the

final run of the Allman Brothers Band in

2014 and both Derek Trucks and Warren

Haynes commented on how distinctive the

tones were

Haynes said of the Cherry burst 59 you

plug it in and the sound of Dwayne is

unmistakable number three

Billy Gibbons

Billy Gibbons Pearly Gates was acquired

in 1968 just as easy top was getting

started as such the guitar was the sound

of the band from their ZZ Top's first

album to the present day

like so many others Billy was launched

on his search for humbucking pickup Les

Paul by the sounds he'd heard on the

July 11 1965 release of John Mayall and

the Blues Breakers featuring Eric

Clapton affectionately known among fans

as the bino album

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foreign

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thank you

foreign

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is well known an aspiring actress in

front of the band needed to go to Los

Angeles to audition for a part they

loaned her a 1939 Packard so she could

get there

the car was on its last legs but it got

her to Hollywood and she got the part

given the age of the car and the girl

getting the part they figured there must

have been divine intervention so they

named the car Pearly Gates

when she asked if she should send back

the car or sell it and send the money

the guys resoundingly said sell it Billy

had heard through a friend that an old

Rancher that lived outside of Houston

had an old guitar under his bed

Gibbons took the 250 he just received

from the actress and drove out to the

ranch and in Billy's words the deal went

down and the name of the car was then

transferred to the guitar

the tone of Pearly Gates is so etched

into Gibbon's musical Consciousness that

all other guitars he uses on stage are

eq'd to match the EQ curve of an open G

chord played on pearly the secret to the

rag is every gets car tar has

a tone it's supposed to reach because

when we change guitars they have to be

homogeneous

so if we go to a Telecaster to a Les

Paul

the the gain all has to be the same we

want we don't want you to tell that he's

ever played a Telecaster we took a

picture played a G chord with pearly we

bring still bring pearly out all the

rehearsals we take a G chord through

this setting

gives us this curve

so that's what pearly is so that's

that's the benchmark

so all we do every time I get a new

guitar I play through this setting a G

chord

and see how off it is because it always

is

and we correct it with this

and get it as you know it's not perfect

science but it's guitar player science

so it sort of works essentially they

make any guitar he's playing sound as

much like pearly as is technologically

possible today the first three ZZ Top

records are a catalog of classic Blues

Licks filtered through a thick Texas

dust storm and have influenced all Les

Paul players that have come after

number two

some might argue that Eric Clapton

belongs at the top of this list but I'll

justify his placement here based on the

relatively short time he used a Les Paul

regardless of that reasoning Clapton's

use of a 1960 burst into a martial combo

on The Beano album was the sort of

before and after moment that make up

this history

after the release of that record the

blues r b and rock world would never be

the same it introduced the interaction

of a Les Paul with an overdriven

Marshall cranked up and breathing fire

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though there are different versions of

the story most agree that Clapton bought

the guitar at Lou Davis's guitar shop in

Cherry Crossroad the debate on whether

the car was a 59 or a 60 leans towards

60 based on Clapton's claim that it had

a very slim neck which would not have

been typical on a 59 burst

and one of the biggest mysteries of

guitar history after Clapton left the

Blues Breakers and started rehearsing

with cream the guitar was stolen from

the rehearsal space

the guitar has never surfaced again but

in an interview in guitarist magazine in

2016 Joe Bonamassa said that he knows

where the bino guitar is residing in a

collection on the east coast of the U.S

he hasn't seen the guitar himself but he

knows people that have that identified

it by the unique fingerprint shape Mark

in the Finish By the volume and tone

pots okay now for some honorable

mentions

Peter Frampton's three pickup custom

will no doubt have its own video in the

future but sadly Frampton's more

sophisticated harmonies using Sixth and

knights didn't make its way into the

mainstream influences that the others

did here I'm sure some will disagree in

the comments

Ace really from Kiss of course was a big

part of my early Rock memory and he

brought great Blues riffs to the stage

with first modified Les Paul deluxes and

later his Les Paul customs in the studio

he was an early advocate of vintage Les

Paul's using a 59 burst

Adam Jones down tuned and Les Paul

driven guitar work with tool in the 90s

made it clear that Les Paul's weren't

just Blues machines

his recent run of custom shop signature

guitars with Gibson sold out in record

time and went on to become a production

model

who'd have thought we'd see the custom

shop making copies of a Les Paul from

the late 70s

Peter Green was likely as the

influential a wielder of a burst Les

Paul in the UK as Clapton was many many

players in the U.S as well list him as a

primary influence including Billy

Gibbons and BB King said that green was

the only player that gave him quote the

cold sweats end quote and that's from a

master indeed

and finally there's no question that Joe

Bonamassa switched from a strat to a Les

Paul earned his career as his primary

instrument has rekindled both my

generation and younger players

interested in blues and blues rock on a

Les Paul

playing vintage bursts on stage he

shines a light on both the classic gear

and the styles of classic players of Les

Paul's in every show and then in every

interview he's always talking about the

history of the players that came before

him

number one

James Patrick page

acquired his famous number one 59 Les

Paul in 1969. Joe Walsh was in the UK

touring with the James gang and offered

the guitar to Paige at first page said

that he already had a Les Paul as he

owned a 1963 pickup Les Paul Custom a

guitar he'd used in his Studio work for

many years but after he played the burst

he relented and bought the guitar that

would become his number one

it's important to remember that this

took place between the recording of Led

Zeppelin's first and second albums the

vast majority of the Led Zeppelin 1 was

recorded with a Telecaster that Paige

had gotten from Jeff Beck when they were

both still in The Yardbirds but Paige

would go on to use the burst to perform

that music on tour and for many many

years after

the guitar slung low he taught the world

what a rock guitar player should look

and sound like

to call is playing loose or is tuning

rough misses the whole point of his

incredible timing and interplay with the

rest of the band that made all his work

so amazing

the tunes he wrote with Led Zeppelin

will always be a part of any guitarist

must learn list classic tunes that have

and will continue to stand the test of

time Paige is the iconic Les Paul player

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thank you

that's my list I encourage you to share

your own top 10 Les Paul players in the

comments section remember my criteria

which was that players in the

instruments had to have the greatest

impact on the music but again share your

own approach and your list I know from

experience that I can count on you if

you like this video you probably enjoy

my short history of the burst Les Paul's

as well

first I need to thank Jeff mcelane and

John Cordy for letting me borrow playing

examples from their excellent videos

Jeff's love of classic lust ball players

like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page is well

known John cordy's relationship with Les

Paul's is how should I say more

complicated

I need to thank Rick biato fluff Justin

Ostrander and Jeff mcelane for their

input and who they felt should be a part

of the shortlist of the most influential

Les Paul players part of the fun of me

making this video was going back and

watching their videos on Les Paul's and

you should do that too whenever I'm

writing about Les Paul's my copy of Dave

Hunter's excellent the Gibson Les Paul

The Illustrated history of the guitar

that changed rock is always close at

hand

I want to thank everyone that stopped by

the store and picked up a t-shirt hoodie

mug hat or the snot precept pack and in

particular I need to thank the friends

of five watt on patreon it's the guitar

Community I've always wanted you're all

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till the end until next time I'm Keith

Williams thanks for being a part of the

five levels

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foreign

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all right