Duolian, Sonoman mentioned Peter Green on page 1, so the Green Manalishi has been duly recognized. Fact of the matter is so many players played Les Pauls its easy to lose track. Remember when Jeff Beck, long a Strat convert, played an LP? And earlier this month there was an auction of a '55 LP Gold Top from, can you believe this, George Benson's collection! Frank Zappa played em for years.

Duolian,
Back in the day (Nov '69) I saw a quad bill at the Fillmore East - Voices of East Harlem, King Crimson, Fleetwood Mac and Joe Cocker. King Crimson played their first album but I digress. We'd heard about this great guitar player Peter Green with Fleetwood Mac but hadn't heard him or seen them. They came out as a four piece and did some straight up Rock & Roll with, as it turned out, Jeremy Spencer. Not bad. Then another player came out who, we found out later, was Danny Kirwin. Very good players, but not the guy who was supposed to blow us away. Everyone left the stage and they announced Peter Green who came out and played Oh Well, solo, on his Les Paul 'burst. He had won the audience and the band came back and he played his ass off. Yes, we can include Mr. Green on the list of Les Paul playing bluesmen.

Randy, how times have changed. I remember, "back in the day", me and my friends would take the Hudson line down to NYC from Ossining (home of the BIG HOUSE, aka Sing Sing, before they changed the name to the Ossining Correctional Institution or some other more socially acceptable verbage), then we'd pan handle in Grand Central, take the IRT down to Astor Place, make the obligatory stop at the "revolving square" (if you catch my drift), then buy the $3 cheap seats for the Fillmore East, only to then move up to the high end seats (5 frickin bucks!!!!).

Those Fillmore East bills were just incredible, week after week. The Jeff Beck Group, Spirit, Quicksilver, the Dead, the Mothers, the Allman Brothers, BB, Albert, the many variations of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (probably the band I saw more than any other at multiple venues), etc., etc. Yeah, you and I saw a few Les Pauls being played........

My older brother and I used to head to the Fillmore, Café Au Go Go, Bitter End, etc. without knowing who was playing! You couldn't go wrong. Tuesday nights at the Fillmore were $2 (yes, two dollars). Pre-Woodstock, before the suits realized they could charge a lot more than $5 for a concert. Butterfield must have played every night; I too saw them more times than I can remember. Maybe that's why his light burned so bright but for too short a time. Their intensity, passion and skill is rarely matched today.
BTW, the square no longer revolves. Bummer. A sign of the times.

Gibson SG's.. from 1974 to 1980 dynamite in the hands of one little Aussie guy...bless him, & I was there.
And his mate from Fremantle he has never been bettered as his foil.
Ride On....

For those about to ROCK..................., Gibson salutes you

Apologies to sonoman/all for not catching the Peter Green mention before I posted.

Mr. Green and I were on the same tiny independent label back in the day (Sail Records). He, of course, was the big star on the label. Even though he was in his "strange period" then, that guy was/is a monster player. He has returned to his blues roots of late and sounds like the old PG.

Plus, writing "Black Magic Woman" (and playing the s#%* out of it before Santana) is enough to qualify him as great.

No problema, Duolian. I was deep into the Berkeley blues underground in 66/67/68 and saw basically everybody that was anybody in the blues world-Chicago, Memphis, Delta, British. A major life lesson: you don't have to be black to play deep blues, you don't have to be Jewish to understand persecution, and you don't have to be a woman to comprehend pain. Human music, the kind that moves us all, comes straight from the human condition of which we are all a part- even those who'd attempt to deny the connections. Peter Green was a genius while he lasted, up there with the best I've ever heard. My first electric guitar was a 60 Paul that I sold the first time I though I was packing in a music career of any kind. Duh. Like WC Fields said about drinking: it's easy to stop. I've done it dozens of times! thanks tom

I'm suprised that no-one as mentioned Hubert Sumlin who played a Les Paul at least for a few years.Buddy Guy was also seen with a red Guild Starfire with humbuckers for many years & strewth he could make that beauty howl.I think Beck was also using Gibson's around the time of the Truth album where he lets rip on "Ain't Superstitious" & "Blues Deluxe" amongst others.

Not only Hubert Sumlin, but the Wolf's other guitarist Jody Williams played an LP, too.

John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Guitar Slim all played P90 goldtops around 1952-54.

Little Milton Campbell was another prominent Chicago Les Paul player.

These cats always had the latest gear, and they were pushing the boundaries first. It's impossible to imagine that they didn't play with their amps cranked full up, but who nearly always gets the credit in the music press for 'inventing' the overdriven Les Paul blues sound? Hmmm. Funny old world.

I think of Elmore James' tone when I think of early overdriven tone. B.B. King, Live at the Regal (1964) has a more overdriven tone than I usually associate with him. Who are you referring to when you say they "nearly always get(s) the credit in the music press for 'inventing' the overdriven Les Paul blues sound"?

Clapton.