Writer John Foyston bought his first Les Paul guitar 40 years ago. Following Les Paul's death earlier this week, Foyston explains the allure of the guitars that bore his name.

Forty years ago, I ripped my suede sport coat as I hurtled down the stairs at my Eugene apartment. I didn't even slow to curse, because I was on my way to pick up my first Les Paul guitar.

Les Pauls are like that.Les Paul the man died earlier this week at the age of 94, bless him, after transforming music as we know it. His name will live on for his contributions to the art of recording and for his role in perfecting the electric solidbody guitar. And more than ever, musicians will lust after the guitar that bears his name.

The one that I bought that long-ago day cost me $250 that I barely had. But after I opened that rounded brown guitar case and breathed in its old-radio redolence, I never thought twice. There, nestled in the pinkish plush lining was a 1953 Goldtop Les Paul Standard, virtually unplayed, it looked like. It was his uncle's guitar, the owner told me. I nodded, distracted by its sheer presence, by the Les Paul signature silkscreened on the black peghead, by its elegant, womanish body which was a voluptuous confection of curves, ivory-amber binding and deep gold lacquer webbed with finish cracks like the craquelure of an old masterpiece.

Sold? I was hooked. It was everything I had dreamed. And I'd done me some dreaming: As a young player, I knew about the guitars before I knew about the man. Everybody I idolized played a Les Paul. Jeff Beck; Jimmy Page; Eric Clapton (sometimes -- his defection to a Statocaster in 1970 was deeply troubling); Duane Allman and Dickie Betts of the Allman Brothers; Mick Ronson -- everybody, it seemed.

And now I did. It didn't matter that those early Les Pauls were pretty much unplayable because of their trapeze bridge/tailpieces. Or that their P-90 pickups were a very different voice than the humbucking pickups of the 1957-and-on models.

Never mind. It was a far better guitar than I was a guitarist, it was a Les Paul, and it was mine.

I've owned maybe a dozen since, Goldtops, Les Paul Specials, mustard-yellow TV models, double- and single-cutaway Les Paul Juniors. They're always beautiful, exciting guitars -- even single-cut Juniors, which are kind of this froggy brown-and-yellow sunburst. But they're beautiful in their own honest way, in the way of a tool properly designed and well built: beautiful like a Snap-On wrench. Beautiful.

Like properly designed tools, the guitars plain worked. Onstage, Les Pauls had a throaty rumble that could impel a song; could urge it along over a whip-crack backbeat, could thunk out a chord like a maul sinking into seasoned oak. And when it was your turn to solo, you could fly with a Les Paul in your hands. The sweetly singing sustain of the pickups transfomed your fingerwork and made the notes somehow bigger and more heroic. Orchestral, you could say. A good Les Paul never let you down.

When my lovely old Goldtop was stolen one sad day (March 6, 1973, but who's counting?) it was time to scale the pinnacle of Les Pauldom, time to find a 1959 Sunburst Les Paul Standard, just like Duane Allman's. George Gruhn in Nashville had one on the wall, badly faded but with a truly exceptional top of bookmatched maple, and would send it along upon receipt of my cashier's check for $1,300. Loans were taken; money was scrounged; and a soon enough a check was sent.

I went out to the airport to pick the guitar up from the air freight terminal and unwrapped it sitting in the car in the parking lot. And my heart sank. Yes, it arrived in the proper brown case, but where was the brilliant cherry-and-yellow sunburst of every photo I'd seen? What was this faded, dusty brown thing that looked like an old violin? I knew in my sinking gut that I'd made a mistake buying the guitar sight unseen, but I decided to tune it back to pitch anyway, the strings having been slacked for shipping.

But as I twisted the tuning pegs, the top E string broke, and my heart along with it. I threaded a spare string in place, but I was tore down level with the ground. I'd been had. What 15-year-old guitar could be worth $1,300? But I tuned the string to pitch, stretched it, tuned again and hit a lick.

I was sitting in a car, miles away from an amplifier, the guitar was just a slab of mahogany and maple with no sound chamber and -- believe me -- it sang. It sang sweetly of redemption, of chances taken and richly repaid. It sang from the depth of its honest and considerable soul. It sang of nights filled with songs, soaring solos and happy, dancing people. It was a magical thing.

Best of all, it was a Les Paul and it was mine.

(Yes, I do know what Sunburst Les Pauls are worth now, but I sold that guitar years ago to Howard Leese in Heart, and he sold it to the Japanese collector in whose vault it presumably languishes. I am happy to have been the last person to play it in clubs and to have spilled beer on it.)

John Foyston: 503-221-8368; johnfoyston@news.oregonian.com