Before Gibson ever thought about building a solidbody guitar (or Leo Fender, for that matter), Les Paul built his own in the 1940s. Basically, he cut apart the body of an Epiphone hollowbody guitar, then placed a 4″ x 4″ piece of solid wood (a railroad tie, according to Les) in between the two pieces, attached a Gibson neck, two primitive pickups and even a crude vibrato tailpiece. Les presented the idea to Gibson, but the concept seemed too far-fetched for the company – at least until they saw the first solidbody guitars being built by Leo Fender in California. Suddenly Gibson was interested and asked Les to come by and bring his “log” with him. The rest, as they say, is history.
