It must have looked great on paper, and few musicians are more deserving of a tribute than Les Paul, but as misbegotten encomiums go, Les Paul & Friends: A Tribute to a Legend ranks somewhere near or below George Martin’s disastrous In My Life — and that album featured performances from Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, so you know you’re on dangerous ground here. Tribute is a hack job, from the shoddy artwork (which lists the tracks in the wrong order) to the songs themselves, a handful of which have been poached from the last Les Paul tribute album, 2005’s American Made World Played. What you end up with is a foul-smelling hash that has its high points (notably “The Good Luck You’re Having,” featuring guitar work from Paul, Hiram Bullock, and Joe Bonamassa), but also answers the question of what it would sound like if Johnny Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls covered U2 (answer: he’d make “All I Want Is You” sound vaguely like “Black Balloon”) and leaves room for Jeff Golub to add an inexplicable cover of Ace’s “How Long.” What does this have to do with Les Paul? In most cases, not much – in fact, Paul doesn’t even appear on some tracks. It has the look and feel of a shady licensing deal gone wrong, but even if you choose to believe the folks who put it together had the best intentions, there’s no reason to purchase this album. Pick up 2005’s The Best of the Capitol Masters: 90th Birthday Edition instead, and leave this to the truck stops and swap meets it deserves. (Immergent 2008)
