It's Been a Long, Long Time

"In 1940 or 1941—the exact date is unknown—, Mr. Paul made his guitar breakthrough. Seeking to create electronically sustained notes on the guitar, he attached strings and two pickups to a wooden board with a guitar neck. 'The log,' as he called it, if not the first solid-body electric guitar, became the most influential one.
"'You could go out and eat and come back and the note would still be sounding,' Mr. Paul once said."

Jon Pareles in The New York Times writes an obituary for Les Paul.