In terms of solid body electric guitars, the Gibson Les Paul is one of the standout instruments of the guitar arena. Les Paul and the Gibson Guitar company first crossed paths in the 1940s. Les (Lester) Paul was a very prominent and well known guitarist entertainer of the time with his own radio show. But Les Paul was also interested in experimenting with the dubbing and amplification of the guitar sound.

In his home, Les Paul would begin to play around with the idea of the solid body guitar and come up with some of his own draft models. One of the thoughts of the time was that this would give an honest sound as the hollow body guitar shape does alter the acoustics. The solid piece of wood would also emphasise the sustain quality of the sound.

The "log guitar" was Les Pauls first home-made attempt at the solid-body guitar. It was a very simple guitar that unfortunately attracted more amusement than genuine interest. Its similarity to a strung broom stick didn't help Les Paul but he persevered with the concept and eventually put forward the instrument to the Gibson Guitar company in 1946.

Gibson Guitars did not initially see anything positive with Les Paul's Guitar and he was initially rejected outright. Things started to change in 1950 and the first commercial success of Fender with the release of the Broadcaster, soon to be called the Telecaster.

The urgency of the situation for Gibson Guitars was now apparent as besides Fender there were also other Guitar production companies doing their own solid body concept work. These were National, Richenbacker and Bigsby. So in 1951, Gibson re-contacted Les Paul seeking his assistance in design and promotion of a product for them.

Things obviously began to click at this point as this team remains so well known today after well over 50 years. Because of their collaboration, the Gibson Les Paul Standard Guitar was released in 1952. Gibson Guitars and Les Paul signed an agreement where Paul would have input to the guitar as well as endorse the end product. This was a 5 year contract for which he was to receive 5% of sales.

The price of the first Gibson Les Paul Standard was $210 which placed it slightly more expensive than Fender's rival Telecaster guitar. The Les Paul Standard has a gold finish so was always to be referred to as the Gold Top. The Les Paul combined a mahogany body with a carved maple top. This combined the clean, clear sound of the maple with the warmer resonance of the mahogany.

The 3 way selector switch was used to control the two single coil P90 pickups that were contained in the first Gibson Les Paul Standard. There was a volume and tone control for each pickup. There was a rosewood fingerboard on the guitar which was overlayed on a mahogany neck. There were mother of pearl, crown shaped inlays as position markers on the finger board. There as also a combined mechanism which was a bridge and tailpiece that attached to the base of the guitar on the original Les paul Model. This was basically the design that Les Paul had used for the previous archtop guitars. It was soon replaced in 1953 as being not needed or wanted on a solid body guitar.

With the growing market, Gibson soon released more models of its signature Les Paul Guitar. In 1954 they produced a cheaper model targetted at the beginner market which was called the Les Paul Junior. At the other end of the range was the Les Paul Custom with its gold hardware. This was the beginning of the golden age of the rock guitar. Gibson was closely aligned with the rock genre and was favored by many rock gods of the 60's and 70's.