Duane Eddy, early rock guitar hero, dies at 86

NEW YORK — Duane Eddy, a pioneering guitar hero whose reverberating electric sound on instruments such as “Rebel Rouser” and “Peter Gunn” helped set the tone for early rock ‘n’ roll and influenced George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and more. countless other musicians, died at 86.

Eddy died Tuesday of cancer at Williamson Health Hospital in Franklin, Tennessee, according to his wife, Deed Abbate.

With his throaty rhythms, backing screams and hand claps, Eddy sold more than 100 million records worldwide and mastered a distinctive sound based on the principle that the low strings of a guitar sounded better on tape than the lower strings acute.

“I had a distinctive sound that people could recognize and I stayed true to that. I’m not one of the best technical players by any means; I just sell the best,” he told the Associated Press in a 1986 interview. “A lot of guys are more skilled than me with the guitar. A lot of things are beyond me. But some parts aren’t what I want to hear on the guitar.”

“Twang” defined Eddy’s sound from his debut album, “Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel,” through his 1993 box set, “Twang Thang: The Duane Eddy Anthology.”

“It’s a silly name for a thing that isn’t,” Eddy told the AP in 1993. “But it’s haunted me for 35 years now, so it’s almost like sentimental value — at least .”

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Eddy and producer Lee Hazlewood helped create the “Twang” sound in the 1950s, a sound that Hazlewood would later adapt into his production of Nancy Sinatra’s 1960s hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin.” Eddy enjoyed a five-year commercial peak from 1958 to ’63. He said that in 1993 he took his 1970 hit “Freight Train” as a cue to slow down.

“It was an easy hit to listen to,” he recalls. “Six or seven years ago, I was at the forefront.”

Eddy has recorded over 50 albums, some of which are reissues. He no longer worked much from the 1980s, “living off my royalties”, he said in 1986.

Of “Rebel Rouser,” he told the AP: “It was a good song and it was the rockiest rock ‘n’ roll sound. It was different for the time.”

He composed theme music for films such as “Because They’re Young,” “Pepe” and “Gidget Goes Hawaiian.” But Eddy said he refused to do the James Bond theme song because there wasn’t enough guitar music in it.

In the 1970s, he worked behind the scenes in music production, primarily in Los Angeles.

Eddy was born in Corning, New York, and raised in Phoenix, where he began playing guitar at age 5. He spent his teenage years in Arizona dreaming of singing on the Grand Ole Opry, and eventually signed with Philadelphia’s Jamie Records in 1958. “Rebel Rouser” soon followed.

Eddy then toured with Dick Clark’s “Caravan of Stars” and appeared in “Because They’re Young”, “Thunder of Drums” among other films.

He moved to Nashville in 1985 after years of semi-retirement in Lake Tahoe, California.

Eddy was not a singer, stating in 1986: “One of my greatest contributions to the music business is not singing. »

Paul McCartney and George Harrison were both fans of Eddy and he recorded with them after the Beatles era. He played on McCartney’s “Rockestra Theme” and Harrison played on Eddy’s self-titled comeback album, both in 1987.