The Orange County Register has published a report on Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry receiving the Les Paul Award at NAMM 2017 this past weekend in Anaheim, CA. Following is an excerpt from the article.

The video montage that was played Saturday night just before Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry accepted his Les Paul Award at the 32nd annual NAMM TEC Awards was a valiant attempt to quickly encapsulate the massive career and impact Perry has had on the music industry. Presented to a packed ballroom at the Anaheim Hilton were a lengthy list of prestigious awards, groundbreaking albums and moments in rock history spread over nearly five decades.

After setting down his trophy, Perry performed a few songs with the help of Depp, fellow Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford and Stone Temple Pilots bassist Robert DeLeo. They were joined by shock rocker Alice Cooper, who plays with Perry and Depp in the band Hollywood Vampires. They blasted through Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” its cover of Tiny Bradshaw’s “Train Kept A-Rollin’” and the Vampires’ original “As Bad As I Am.”

Before the show, Perry sat down for an interview in which he talked about owning more than 600 guitars and the time he first fell in love with a Les Paul guitar.

“I had seen pictures of Jimmy Page and (Eric) Clapton playing them, and then I saw Jeff Beck playing one live, and I sat in front of him in this small place in Boston and watched him play it,” Perry recalled. “The next day I was determined to get one, and it wasn’t too much longer after that I actually sat down and I had it in my hands and I thought, ‘This doesn’t sound like Jeff Beck.’ That was it. I remember picking it up and it felt incredible.”

“When the first Les Paul came out, everybody looked at it and went, ‘Hmm. Is this going to fly? It isn’t hollow,’’ he said. “Meanwhile you have Leo Fender running neck and neck with Les Paul on the West Coast, and arguably those are the two most influential guys from where I sit in this century because they basically invented a new way for us to express ourselves.

“People had been putting microphones on guitars and figuring stuff out, but no one did it the way they did it. Fender had more like the Henry Ford version, and of course, Les Paul went at it more like the Mercedes-Benz. It was as important as Tesla, Edison or Ford or any one of those guys that took technology to another level. So, to have an award that’s named after Les Paul, well, it doesn’t get any better.”

Go to this location for the complete report.

Video of Hollywood Vampires featuring Joe Perry and Alice Cooper performed the Aerosmith classic "Sweet Emotion" on the night. Check out the video below.