Culture

Les Paul: The Car Accident That Changed Music Forever

by Jon Azpiri | August 13, 2009 at 10:31 am

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The music world is mourning the death of Les Paul, the father of the electric guitar. One of the most interesting stories from Paul's epic career of innovation was the car accident that changed his life and, in turn, the course of music history.

In 1948, Paul flipped his car while driving near Davenport, Oklahoma. The near fatal car crash kept Paul in the hospital for nearly a year.

At the time of the accident, Paul was an established musician who had spent years developing a solid body electric guitar. All that time in the hospital gave Paul time to think.

“I got a long time to think about it,” he said. “I changed the whole concept, that I was going to switch and I was going to have Mary be the singer, just the two of us, and create this whole new kind of music. And so it happened. That was such an asset to me, to be disabled so badly that it forced me to stop doing everything and think about it. And in thinking about it, I changed my whole life right there.”

While Paul had time to think about his work, he also needed time to recover. At one time, his injuries were so severe doctors thought they may have had to amputate one of his arms. Upon hearing the news, Paul thought of inventing a guitar synthesizer that could played with one arm.

His arm wasn't amputated. Instead, doctors rebuilt his elbow. Doctors told him that they could save his arm, but he would never regain movement in it and that the position it was set in would be permanent. Paul told doctors to set his arm at slightly less than a right angle so he could still play guitar.

While many rockers have posed as badasses who live to play music, it's hard to think of anyone more badass than Les Paul who had his arm permanently fused at a right angle, just so he could keep making music.