Duane Eddy under Stagecoach Music Festival i Indio i California i 2014. Foto: Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP / NTB
Guitarist Duane Eddy has died, aged 86. He was known as the “king of twang guitar” and has inspired artists such as John Fogerty and Bruce Springsteen.
Thursday 2 May at 06:11
Eddy died of cancer at the Williamson Health hospital, his wife Deed Abbate said, according to the news agency AP. The hospital is located in Franklin in the US state of Tennessee, where Eddy lived.
Duane Eddy was born in the state of New York, but lived in Arizona when he had his big breakthrough with the song “Rebel-‘Rouser” in 1958. He was also known for, among other things, “Because They’re Young” and his version of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn”.
Eddy had a total of 16 top 40 singles in the US, and three of them climbed into the top 10.
Eddy is described as one of rock history’s most influential instrumentalists and was a major source of inspiration for artists such as George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and John Fogerty, writes Guitar World.
Influenced many
Also Dave Davies of The Kinks, Hank Marvin of The Shadows and Mark Knopfler are among those who have stated that Eddy’s guitar playing has influenced them.
Duane Eddy’s guitar sound was what is referred to as twang, a sharp and vibrating tone, often from the guitar’s deepest strings and with a lot of resonance.
Eddy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and manager Kyle Young has made this statement in connection with Eddy’s passing.
– Instrumental artists rarely become celebrities. But Duane Eddy’s electric guitar had a voice all its own.
Eddy’s breakthrough directly inspired the aforementioned Hank Marvin in The Shadows, who also became enormously big in Norway.
This in turn led to a number of Norwegian “Shadowsbands” in Norway in the early 60s. Among the most famous are The Beatniks and The Quivers.