Google Doodle honoring Les Paul lets you do the pickin’

Prior to this morning, all I knew about Les Paul was that his parents had the foresight to bestow upon him the full name of Guitar Legend Les Paul.

Now I know a bit more thanks to today’s Google Doodle, which not only honors Paul on what would have been his 96^th birthday (he died in 2009) but it also allows anyone so inclined to play, record and share their own guitar solos.

This video shows it in action:

Here’s the dueling banjoes song from the movie Deliverance.

And other examples are popping up on YouTube. This one purports to be the Indian national anthem.

The Doodle is already being hailed as Google’s finest such effort to date, and, well, those who see it that way will get no argument from me.

As for Paul himself, his Wikipedia page begins:

Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009)[3][4]-known as Les Paul-was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which “made the sound of rock and roll possible”.[5] He is credited with many recording innovations. Although he was not the first to use the technique, his early experiments with overdubbing (also known as sound on sound),[6] delay effects such as tape delay, phasing effects and multitrack recording were among the first to attract widespread attention.[7]

You can learn a lot more about Paul, and listen, too, at lespaulonline.com.

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