Les Paul in His Own Words - Centennial Edition by Les Paul and Michael Cochran | Guitar Interactive Magazine

Les Paul tells his amazing life story in a deluxe paperback volume featuring a gallery of exclusive photography.

In 2009, the legendary Les Paul passed away at the age of 94. In celebration of his life, Les Paul in His Own Words, capturing Paul's own reflections on his remarkable inventions and guitar playing, was published in a high-end collector's edition.

On June 9, 2015, a yearlong celebration of the 100th anniversary of Les Paul was launched nationwide. Backbeat Books is pleased to celebrate the legend once more in the first-ever paperback edition, Les Paul in His Own Words: Centennial Edition (March 2016, $29.99). This fascinating story about the "Father of Modern Music" celebrates his life and his legacy.

At 13, Paul took the tone arm from his father's phonograph, jammed the heavy needle into the top of his five-dollar guitar, and filled it with plaster of paris to quell feedback. The guitar didn't survive, but his idea worked. Les Paul had essentially created the solid body electric guitar. He went on to alter countless guitars in his quest to create the perfect sound, making one breakthrough after another along the way.

Nonstop experiments in his homemade recording studio led to the invention of sound-on-sound, multi-track recording, overdubbing, echo, and a host of other discoveries that revolutionized the recording industry, while he and wife Mary Ford dominated early 1950s pop charts with a continual string of hits.