Publicists for Les Paul reported this afternoon that the legendary musician and pioneer of the electric guitar and multi-track audio recording has died. Paul had been battling complications from pneumonia at a hospital in White Plains, New York, and died surrounded by friends and family. He was 94.

Known as the “Father of the Electric Guitar,” Paul had always been a musical misfit in his own right. Since he was a child, he had a passion for “tinkering” with musical and electronic devices to see how they worked and devised ways to improve them. He built his own electric guitar in 1928 at the age of 13 by hooking up microphone and telephone parts to an acoustic guitar and routing the electrical signal to radio speakers using a needle.

His exploration led to the invention of the electric solid-body guitar, which to this day still bears his name. The Gibson Les Paul guitar is an iconic symbol among musicians and is known for its rich sound. It has also been credited as one of the driving forces behind the rise of rock and roll music.

"I was interested in proving that a vibration-free top was the way to go," he has said. "I even built a guitar out of a railroad rail to prove it. What I wanted was to amplify pure string vibration, without the resonance of the wood getting involved in the sound."

Such tinkering also led to the creation of multi-track recording technology. His experiments with dubbing live tracks over recorded ones, adding heads to traditional recording devices, and close-miking vocal techniques led to the production of the first true multi-track time recording in 1950: "How High the Moon." The track was a No. 1 hit and is now considered a historic release.

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