It was an ordinary day. Reading about one of my all-time favorite musicians, Duane Eddy, who recently died at the age of 86. Duane was a pioneering guitar hero whose reverberating electric sound on instrumentals such as "Rebel Rouser" and "Peter Gunn" helped put the twang in early rock 'n' roll and influenced George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and countless other musicians. Duane died at the age of 86 of cancer about a week ago at the Williamson Health Hospital in Franklin, Tennessee, according to his wife, Deed Abbate. Eddy sold more than 100 million records worldwide and mastered a distinctive sound based on the premise that a guitar's bass strings sounded better on tape than the high ones.
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| Duane Eddy |
I learned to play the guitar back when Duane Eddy was my hero. I took a few lessons and tried my best to play as well as Duane, but you can guess how that went! I even had someone paint part of my guitar with "Little Twanger" on it. Duane said that he had a distinct sound that people could recognize and he stuck pretty much with that. He never claimed to be one of the best technical players by any means, but he could play with the best. A lot of guys were more skillful than Duane, but some of it is not what he wanted to hear out of his guitar. "Twang" defined Eddy's sound from his first album "Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel," to his 1993 box set, "Twang Thang: The Duane Eddy Anthology." "It's a silly name for a nonsilly thing," Duane told the AP in 1993. "But, it has haunted me for 35 years now, so it's almost like sentimental value...if nothing else." Duane was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Eddy had a five-year commercial peak from 1958-63. He said in 1993 he took his 1970 hit "Freight Train" as a clue to slow down. Eddy recorded more than 50 albums, some of them re-issues. He didn't work too much from the 1980s on, "living off my royalties," he said in 1986. About "Rabble Rouser," he told the AP: "It was a good title and it was the rockest rock 'n' roll sound. It was different for the time. He scored theme music for movies including "Because They're Young," "Pepe," and "Gidget Goes Hawaiian." But, Eddy said he turned down doing the James Bond theme song because there wasn't enough guitar music in it. Eddy later toured with Dick Clark's "Caravan of Stars" and appeared in "Because They're Young" and "Thunder of Drums" among other movies. Duane moved to Nashville in 1985 after years of semi-retirement in Lake Tahoe, California. Eddy was not a vocalist, saying in 1986, "One of my biggest contributions to the music business was not singing!" Paul McCartney and George Harrison were both fans of Eddy, and he recorded with both of them after their Beatles' days. Duane Eddy was, and still is one of my favorite Rock 'n Roll musicians. I will always remember his 'twanging music which I often tried to duplicate on my guitar. Never did work out for me! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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