Les Paul RIP + Willy DeVille

I guess everyone has to die some time, even Les Paul who has died aged 94. He seemed to go on for ever, as various TV shows have shown over the last few years. But time finally caught up with the inventor of the solid bodied Gibson Les Paul guitar, without which rock and roll and everything that followed might have been very different. His hit recordings with wife Mary Ford mostly predated the rock era, but no one can deny his influence on the genre. Here's an early obituary on the NME website: http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=10&title=les_paul_the_man_who_made_a_million_guit&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 And here are his obits in The Times and Independent http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6795130.ece http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/les-paul-influential-guitarist-whose-technical-innovations-helped-create-the-sound-of-rock-n-roll-1771897.html

Also no longer with us is Willy DeVille, who is best known in the UK for the Mink DeVille hit Spanish Stroll in the late 70s. Willy, like me, was a huge fan of New Orleans R and B and eventually settled in the Big Easy, where he played with the likes of Earl King, Dr John, Eddie Bo, Allen Toussaint and the Meters, among others. There's a very full entry on Willy on Wikipedia which is worth a look http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_DeVille