It was never released, but with a solid centre section and glued-on archtop wings, Les Paul’s early prototype not only set the solidbody electric guitar in motion, but also the ES-335- type thinline semi-acoustic.

Les knew that a solid guitar would sustain better than a hollow one, so the solution was obvious. Gibson disagreed, and it took them until 1952 to settle on a design that went on sale. That guitar – the Gibson Les Paul – didn’t do so badly, either.