I wrote my dad about Les's passing and he wrote me back this:
"Thanks for the update, sad as it is. One of the things on my "Bucket List" was to see him play at the Iridium on Monday nights, before I moved down here, and I did. He was amazing! Not only a fantastic performer, but one of the nicest people you would ever want to meet. I remember him telling the crowd that if they wanted to take flash pictures while he was performing, he didn't mind because he couldn't see that well anyway! Then, some guy in the audience, from Kansas I believe, brought his banjo and asked if he could sit in. Well, during the set Les Paul invited him up and they played a couple of numbers together. He talked to anyone who wanted to talk to him, both before and after the set, and signed anything you wanted signed and took pictures with anyone who wanted to take pictures of or with him. (One of my big mistakes was not bringing a camera, because in most of these venues they throw you out if you even try to take a picture.)
Besides the famous Les Paul guitar, which was his design, (Although he didn't invent the electric guitar, his design is still the standard for the industry.) he really revolutionized the entire music industry by being the first to do sound-on-sound and sound-over-sound. He did it in his basement with two Revox reel-to-reel 15" tape recorders! His recordings with his wife, Mary Ford, were the very first ever done this way. They still sound pretty good. (It must have been a bitch synching up the tracks!)
He will definately be missed, especially by me!"
"The only funeral you should ever try to interrupt is your own, and that should be a full-time job." -Kinky Friedman