George Harrison leaned forward, his eyes getting bigger. “You know, when Duane hits that low E, it’s still only an E,” he emphasized. “But it sounds like it’s got to be an octave lower.”
Yes, even Beatles have heroes, and when Harrison was asked about Duane Eddy in 1987, it was like a Little Leaguer talking about Hank Aaron. Before the term was coined, Duane Eddy was a guitar hero to guitar heroes who followed. Immediately upon news of his death on April 30 (at age 86), testimonials flowed online from John Fogerty, Jimmy Page, Tommy Emmanuel, and others. Bruce Springsteen posted a video of himself swapping his trademark Tele for a black Gretsch, saying in part, “Duane was a huge influence on my guitar stylings, and without Duane, there’s no this,” as he played the “Born To Run” riff.
Ritchie Blackmore wrote, “I would always rush out and buy his long-playing records. My favorite all-time tune from him was ‘The Lonely One.’ He was a brilliant guitarist in his own right. He was the first guitar player with that deep bass sound, which I loved. Unfortunately, I never saw him live. He was very kind to me last year, because I had missed him on so many occasions, he sent me a Gretsch (Duane Eddy model) guitar as a present for Christmas. I couldn’t believe it. He will always be my number-one inspiration, from the time I took up the guitar until now. He was so unique in his playing. The world has lost a great guitar player. A truly unique guitar player.”
Brian May posted pictures of Eddy playing the Queen guitarist’s famous homemade guitar backstage when the band played Nashville in 2017.
“Duane’s sound was distinctive, original, and completely cutting edge at the time,” his message read. “His style involved bending low strings of his guitar – an earthy, exciting innovation… It might sound like nothing out of the ordinary in these days of a million flashy electric guitar players, but at that time it was revolutionary – freeing the guitar from its former stiffness, and making it talk. For me and thousands of other kids at the time, it was joyous and inspiring. We all wanted that deep ‘Twang’.”
Rock and roll had great electric guitarists before Eddy’s arrival – from Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock,” featuring Danny Cedrone, to Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley sideman Scotty Moore. But Duane Eddy offered something different. He didn’t sing, he didn’t duck-walk, he stood there, tall, with movie-star good looks, and played melodies on the bass strings, heavy on the tremolo and reverb. As Greg Shaw wrote in his liner notes to The Vintage Years, “Duane Eddy more than anyone else deserves credit for discovering the potential of the electric guitar in rock and roll. It remained for Eddy to bring out the instrument’s latent possibilities, not to mention its commercial potential, as a solo voice.”
Tone is a guitarist’s signature, their calling card. Carlos Santana, Albert King, Richard Thompson, Dick Dale – each player’s sound is as instantly recognizable as it is different from each other. And before Eddy entered the picture, nobody sounded like him.
Born in Corning, New York, he was given a Kay acoustic around age eight, having learned a few chords from his father at five. For his ninth birthday, he got an Electromuse lap steel.
When he was 13, his family moved to Coolidge, Arizona, and for his next birthday was given a Les Paul goldtop. One of the bands he played in did the Top 10 country hits for a local television show. “But at dances, people wanted uptempo things, so it was like rockabilly,” he said. “And Elvis came along about then, so we did a lot of that type of thing. Rock and roll was just getting started.”
“Gear” consisted of an amp the size of an orange crate.
“I kept the Les Paul until I was 17,” he recounted. “Then I traded it for a Gretsch Chet Atkins model. When I was 19, I started recording, and I used that.”
The Atkins 6120 had a Bigsby whammy bar, which became a trademark of his “twangy” style. “I always made it a part of my playing, because it gives you a vibrato and different effects. You can slide up to a note. It’s good when I play B.B. King-style blues, which I did on ‘Three-30-Blues.’”
Produced by local disc-jockey Lee Hazlewood, “Moovin’ N’ Groovin’” was an uptempo rock instrumental. Released in ’58 on Philadelphia’s Jamie Records, it made it to #73 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and #54 on Cashbox.
Essentially self-taught, Eddy took lessons from jazz- and Western-swing stalwart Jimmy Wyble. What he gleaned from bandmate Al Casey was less-formal.
“Al showed me a lot of things – mostly licks, you know? Al used to let me sit in with his group in Phoenix when I was 16 or 17, so that’s where I learned to play – more so than when I was just sitting around the house. I learned a lot from him. Al was always very much a part of it. He and Lee and I sat down and discussed making an instrumental, and Al wrote ‘Ramrod.’”
The Eddy/Hazlewood original “Rebel Rouser” climbed up to #6, as well as #8 on R&B. Ricky Nelson hits featured lead work by Joe Maphis and James Burton, who shot up to the high frets – Burton having learned the trick of using banjo strings on the first and second strings. But Eddy concentrated down low, achieving a big, round tone.
The guitar and rhythm section of “Rebel Rouser” were recorded in Phoenix, with the tape then sent to Los Angeles, where saxophonist Gil Bernal was overdubbed. Yelps and hollers by the vocal group The Sharps (later renamed The Rivingtons) added to the intensity, as the track modulated up half-steps. Because of the song’s success, the band was billed as the Rebels.
“Somebody has to establish the song,” he said in 1977. “If I were a singer, I wouldn’t improvise; I’d sing the song and let the musicians do the rest. As an instrumentalist, I have to play the song, so it doesn’t leave me a lot of room to improvise. When you’re playing an instrumental, it’s got to start somewhere and end somewhere, and it’s got to say something.”
Have Twangy Guitar, Will Travel spent 81 weeks on the charts. “That first album of Duane’s is so classic,” Fogerty exclaimed in 1985. “That’s how to make an instrumental record. Out of 12 cuts on there, I think I was hearing nine of them on the radio. We used to do ‘Three-30-Blues’ over and over. We just called it ‘Blues in G.’ Each of those songs had a beginning, middle, and end, like English Lit or something. It was just so intelligent, and it sounded so great.”
When Duane played a concert in Oakland in February, 1960, with Jerry Lee Lewis, James Brown, and B.B. King, in attendance were all four future members of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Meanwhile, “Ramrod,” “Cannonball,” and “The Lonely One,” included on Have Twangy Guitar, all hit the Top 30.
Besides heavy tremolo, Duane’s tone relied on some ingenious reverb.
“The studio didn’t have an echo chamber, so Lee bought an empty water tank and put a speaker in one end and a microphone in the other,” he related. “There was no room inside the studio for this 500-gallon tank, so they set it outside and we used to have to chase the birds off of it. Sometimes we had to stop recording if a siren went by or an airplane flew over, because it picked up everything.”
By that point, he’d upgraded from the orange-crate amplifier.
“I used a reworked Magnatone on ‘Rebel Rouser,’ and then I had one custom-built with a new tremolo circuit,” he detailed. “I compared it to everything that came around, and nothing could match it. A guy in Phoenix, Tom Howard McCormick, made it. He called them Howard amps.
“I use medium-gauge strings with a wound G,” he continued. “DeArmond pickups are what I like – they help get that ballsier sound – and JBL speakers because they get that good midrange and a sharp, crisp, clear sound.”
Al Casey, who played rhythm, bass, and piano with Duane, later moved to Los Angeles and played hundreds of sessions with Nancy Sinatra, Glen Campbell, the Association, and others. After L.A. session musicians Plas Johnson and Gil Bernal played sax on “Moovin’ N’ Groovin’” and “Rebel Rouser,” respectively, Eddy plucked young Steve Douglas out of Kip Tyler & the Flips to play on the road and in the studio. After about a year, Douglas was boasting a full calendar of sessions himself, so he recommended Jim Horn as a replacement. Horn, who later recorded with George Harrison, Elvis Presley, and Canned Heat, brought Larry Knechtel into the fold – the future pianist on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and bassist on “Mr. Tambourine Man.” It would not be an overstatement to call Eddy’s band a farm team for the Wrecking Crew.
“Yep,” the Eddy-Casey collaboration “Forty Miles Of Bad Road,” “Some Kind-a Earthquake,” “Shazam” all charted well – in some cases even better in the U.K. In early 1960, Duane toured England with headliner Bobby Darin. The audiences and reviewers were less-enamored with Darin’s Vegas-type style, but were downright ecstatic for Eddy’s electrifying rock. Derek Johnson wrote in New Musical Express, “Hit of the evening from audience’s point of view was Duane Eddy, who gave a really fantastic display of guitar virtuosity and left the fans yelling for more. The full vitality alive effect achieved by this young man is quite amazing.”
In fact, when the tour ended, Eddy was booked to come back for a headlining stint just six weeks later, and NME readers voted him “Number One Musical Personality of 1960,” with Elvis Presley second.
His most successful single, 1960’s “Because They’re Young,” was from a movie starring Dick Clark. His guitar was surrounded by strings, and he was playing another axe in his toolbox.
“That was a departure for me, but I loved the idea,” he said. “Also, Buddy Holly had come out the year before with ‘It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,’ which had strings. It was unheard of at that time to have a violin section on a rock and roll record. I walked into Music City one day, and here was this six-string bass guitar. I thought, ‘Boy, somebody designed this for me – or because of me.’”
His Danelectro was strung E to E – an octave lower than a guitar – which was how the company designed it.
Duane wasn’t opposed to trying new things. “What I do has been put down as being simple and even dumb. I don’t agree,” he said. “I’ll continue on with my style. It’s a process and a choice and a direction I choose. I’ll change things around; I like to keep an open mind. But I’m not going to start playing hot licks and work up a lot of complicated stuff just to dazzle everybody and prove that I can do it.”
On the album, The “Twangs” the “Thang”, “Tiger Love & Turnip Greens” featured the Dano, while the jazzy “Route #1” showcased Jim Horn’s flute. Two hits combining guitar with vocals were “(Dance With The) Guitar Man” (1962) and “Boss G uitar” (’63). Both featured Darlene Love and the Blossoms, redubbed “The Rebelettes,” and the latter’s riff consisted of bending a single note 18 times.
In ’61, Guild issued a Duane Eddy signature model patterned after the 6120, making him the first rock guitarist with an instrument bearing his name. In ’83, Guild reissued the DE-500 with the original DeArmond 2000 Dynasonic pickups still available at the Guild workshop, which Duane was insistent on.
Viewing albums separately from singles put Hazlewood and Eddy ahead of the curve. Thus, Songs Of Our Heritage featured gut-string guitar, banjo, and flute; Twangy Guitar – Silky Strings contained ballads backed by strings; and “Twang” A Country Song consisted of country standards like “Crazy Arms” and “The Window Up Above.”
“I love country, and I cut it in Nashville with Buddy Emmons on pedal steel, the Jordanaires on background vocals, and Floyd Cramer and Pig Robbins on piano. That’s where my roots are; that’s where everybody’s roots are in rock and roll. I always maintained that Hank Williams started rock and roll. Ever listen to ‘Move It On Over’ and then play ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley? It’s practically the same track.”
Eddy even invited country-jazzer Hank Garland to participate, after he’d suffered brain damage in a car wreck. “His wife and I thought the familiarity of that environment might help him improve, just playing rhythm. So Hank really is playing on my version of ‘Sugarfoot Rag’ – a fact I am sentimentally proud of.”
A side note: Eddy once had a fluke hook-up with a phone operator who was married to Dan Dugmore, who Duane didn’t know at the time but later became the steel player on Ronstadt’s “Blue Bayou.” Dugmore was stunned to have the legend hand-deliver a copy of “Twang” A Country Song on his birthday. Decades later, the two dueted at a Buddy Emmons tribute.
Inevitably, the Beatles and the British Invasion sounded a death knell to rock instrumentals. As Duane’s popularity waned, gimmicky album titles like Water Skiing, Duane a-Go-Go, and even Duane Does Dylan failed to find an audience. He segued into producing with Phil Everly’s solo debut, Star Spangled Springer, and Waylon Jennings’ I’ve Always Been Crazy, featuring the Crickets – and scored a #9 hit in the U.K.with 1975’s “Play Me Like You Play Your Guitar.”
In ’76, what should have been a country smash floundered because Elektra didn’t have inroads with the country market. Featuring future wife Deed Abbate and “some very good friends” (Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson), “You Are My Sunshine“ hit #1 on WHN in New York City before it was pulled by the label. Pedal-steel on it had been provided by Duane himself. “I bought a second-hand Fender 400 from Red Rhodes, just to see if I could learn it.”
Eddy had barely gigged in several years when he was booked to play the L.A. jazz club Baked Potato in May of ’83. Club owner Don Randi, who was also a keyboardist in the Wrecking Crew, teamed with Steve Douglas to gather players…
“Hal Blaine on drums, Ry Cooder on slide, John Garnache on bass, along with us,” Randi said. “The first night, word got out that Duane Eddy was playing there, the place was packed. Duane walked into the room, and when he came back, his silk shirt was soaking wet. I said, ‘Are you alright?’ He said, ‘My God, Larry Carlton’s out there, Lee Ritenour, Tom Petty, Linda Ronstadt.’ It was because they all adored and idolized him. He was the guy they tried to emulate when they started playing guitar. So they had to come and see the master. And we blew the house down. I would’ve continued doing that for a year, it was so much fun.”
At a return engagement later that year, Cooder was replaced by Albert Lee.
The following year, Duane played on King Cobra by Douglas, who played more gigs featuring Robben Ford on guitar, followed by Greg Douglass.
When Eddy opened a mid-’80s Huey Lewis & The News tour, his all-star band included Douglas again, with Larry Knechtel on keyboard, Lee on guitar, and Jerry Scheff on bass – the latter two replaced by Arlen Roth and Jerry Jemmott. Emmylou Harris’ 1986 single, “I Had My Heart Set on You,” featured twangy low notes that could only belong to one person.
That year, the strange-bedfellows pairing of Eddy and the Art Of Noise won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, for a remake of a Duane single from 1960, “Peter Gunn.”
“I hadn’t heard of them, so they sent me a tape,” he explained. “I thought, ‘Hmm…. Pretty far out.’ A couple of months later, I flew over with my green Gretsch Country Club and put guitar onto the track.”
The visibility had a hand in a Capitol deal resulting in his self-titled 1987 album. In addition to Art Of Noise, Knechtel, Horn, Cooder, and Fogerty, it featured David Lindley, Steve Cropper, Jim Keltner, James Burton, and Paul McCartney.
“It was kind of a kick, standing there playing lead and looking over, and there’s Paul McCartney rocking out on his Höfner bass.”
Duane and Jeff Lynne discussed doing something together, but when the time was right for Duane, Lynne was working with George Harrison on Cloud Nine. Shortly after they got off the phone, Lynne called back. After he’d told Harrison who he was talking to, George offered to put his album on hold and invited Duane to record in his studio. The ex-Beatle played slide on two songs, including “The Trembler,” co-written by Duane from a riff Harrison heard Ravi Shankar hum (the eery tune was later featured in Natural Born Killers – and who can forget “Rebel Rouser” playing a part in Forrest Gump?).
Eddy toured Europe with the Everly Brothers in the early ’90s, and the decade saw cameos with Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin, Carl Perkins and the Mavericks, and Doc Watson, while Rhino released the anthology, Twang Thang.
In ’94 came a long overdue induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Foreigner’s Mick Jones handling the presentation.
Duane and the Ventures finally got together on 1999’s New Depths, produced by “Skunk” Baxter.
He was inducted to the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2008, but his profile dimmed again until he played Deke Dickerson’s Guitar Geek Festival in 2010, after which Duane used Dickerson’s backup band at New Orleans’ Ponderosa Stomp that year.
In 2011, he returned to Gretsch, who issued the G6120DE signature model, in Desert Sunrise finish. That year, his first album in 14 years, Road Trip, was produced by Pulp’s Richard Hawley, and Eddy played the huge Glastonbury Festival with saxophonist Ron Dziubla from the Geek/Ponderosa lineup onboard in the studio and onstage. In ’13, he received the Lifetime Achievement award for Instrumentalist from the Americana Music Association, and when Paul McCartney was chosen 2015’s MusiCares Person of the Year, Eddy delivered a beautiful instrumental reading of “And I Love Her.”
In 2017, he jammed with Jeff Beck at the Gretsch Party, and at another event hauled out his new signature Gretsch six-string bass for “House of the Rising Sun,” with Hawley, the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, and harmonica legend Charlie McCoy. The unmistakable Duane Eddy twang found its way to solo projects by Auerbach, E Street Band bassist Garry Tallent, and Pretenders front-woman Chrissie Hynde.
Fittingly, he gave a triumphant U.K. Farewell Tour in ’18, playing the London Palladium.
Of his trademark style, he mused, “I can’t change it, as such, because that is me. Part of the style is the way I play – the way my fingers work, the way I think, my feeling for the instrument, and what I hear. The other part of it is electronic. But, basically, it comes from me, and I can’t change that any more than singers can change their voices. You’re not going to hear Phil Everly sing like Joe Cocker.”
When Eddy was added to the Music City Walk of Fame in Nashville last year, Steve Wariner’s induction speech read, in part, “Duane Eddy is one of the most-important guitarists we’ve ever had. He is among a rare few who actually created a whole genre, a playing style; his own unique twang that is still heard and copied on recordings and in movie and TV to this very day. You can ask any of the so-called rock-god guitarists right now. They will light up at the mention of one Duane Eddy. They will add, ‘I learned from him.’ Didn’t we all?”
“I hate for people to imitate just to be imitating, I don’t mind them imitating me,” Duane laughed in 1984. “That’s a different story. It’s a hell of a compliment. I never get tired of hearing it, whether it’s guys playing a couple of my licks or saying in an interview that they were influenced by me. That’s worth more than the money would’ve been. It’s influenced a great many people, professionals and amateurs of all styles, because no matter what they went on to play, a lot of them picked up a guitar in the first place after hearing one of my records. For example, surf music was just like watching a son grow up. I’ll tell you, during some of the lean years, when I’ve not gone out and recorded or played big shows, to hear people doing that has kept me going. It makes you feel like you did something worthwhile after all.”
Terms like “legend” and “icon” are bandied about far too loosely, but in 2010 Mojo magazine fittingly gave its Icon Award to Eddy. Doing the honors, Be-Bop Deluxe’s Bill Nelson held the very copy of “Because They’re Young” that he bought in 1960 and declared, “The sound of the guitar on this record lit a fire that still burns today.”
Shortly after news of Eddy’s passing circulated, a touching post from the Kinks’ Dave Davies expressed what many were feeling: “I thought he’d live forever.”
All quotes are from interviews conducted by Dan Forte unless otherwise noted.
Echoes of Duane
Musicians Pay Homage
In addition to the countless testimonials that flooded the press and social media following Duane Eddy’s death, a who’s who of guitarists sent the following tributes and remembrances exclusively to Vintage Guitar.
When I was 13, Duane played Finsbury Park in North London. I got a ticket from my brother-in-law. That day, I was playing on the playground and I accidentally hurt my eye and had an eye patch. They said, “You can’t go to the concert because you might damage your cornea.” I said, “I don’t care. I’m going to go and see Duane Eddy!” So we went, and I was totally enraptured. It was one of the biggest events of my young life. I’d started messing around on guitar, and he was an enormous influence – on me and on (brother) Ray. We were right at the beginning of our journey.
I met him in London in 2018. After all these years, it was quite emotional meeting somebody you feel you’ve known all your life. The Kinks were without a bass player, and it was really funny; he said, “Oh, I’ll do it.” Duane Eddy could sit in playing bass with the Kinks?! That would be priceless. I think he contributed so much to early rock and roll. He was an immense figure to me. – Dave Davies
Probably the first music I heard that made me want to be in a band was surf music. The Ventures were the top guitar instrumental band of that period. But the sound of Duane Eddy’s guitar was something I couldn’t even comprehend: How did it sound so big and deep?
I was invited to play three shows with him back in 1984, having not really kept track of him over the years. At our one rehearsal, he started playing the line from “Peter Gunn.” My hair stood on end! It was so strong! For a few songs, he also pulled out a Danelectro six-string bass, strung an octave lower. Playing all of that music was just a blast. Plus, he was a pleasure to be around. That was a great moment for me. – Robben Ford
Duane shook the earth with low notes. Pure poetry. Everything he played was timeless – eternally cool like the man himself. He was the ultimate guitar hero. Duane was my pal, and I am forever indebted to him for giving me a license to twang. – Marty Stuart
After Duane heard my version of “Rebel Rouser” (Guitar In The Space Age, 2014), he wrote me this incredible, flattering letter. It said, “You must have been reading my mind and heart throughout the recording. My first love was country music, and you captured the feeling that I always had for that song but didn’t know how to do. Also, we were going for a hit, and went for raucous and big happy party, with ominous fringe elements. But those were the beginning days of rock and roll, and everything had to tell a story of teenage, crazy, hormonal expression. So we went after that and got lucky. But somehow you heard my country soul underlying the song. I wrote it at the session on March 16, 1958. You are an amazing player, my friend.”
I became aware of guitar through surf music of the Ventures and Astronauts. But then you have to go back and see what pre-dated them. I can’t think of anything that preceded Duane in the same way. Everything that came after him that was impacted by that sound, like the spaghetti-western stuff – you have to look back to him. That sound is like oxygen or something; you’re not aware that you’re breathing it. – Bill Frisell
Duane Eddy was a guitar hero before the term existed. When I first was learning to play, it was Duane and the Ventures who put the guitar out front in a market flooded with girl groups and Bobbys from Philly.
I had the pleasure of meeting him on several occasions, and he was as fine and mellow as his playing style. You couldn’t meet a kinder, sweeter guy. My sincere condolences to his wife Deed and the rest of the Eddy family. – Elliot Easton
Duane Eddy sang pop hits with his guitar. Pure melody, right in the human-voice range, with very little ornamentation and no inscrutable lyrics to distract. Today, when we say “twangy guitar,” we typically mean “…like Duane.” – Bill Kirchen
Duane Eddy was the first guitarist who emphasized how his guitar sounded as much as what he played. It was an honor and a privilege to be able to produce an album, not only with him, but with the Ventures at the same time! Doesn’t get any better than that. Godspeed, Duane. – Jeff Baxter
Duane was such a good friend and inspiration. I was honored to be onstage with him many times, and he was always so gracious to give me the opportunity to solo. I know there are many like me who have such great stories of being with him. I shall mourn my dear friend and send much love to his dear wife, Deed. – Albert Lee
Duane Eddy’s bare-bones, no-frills sound really hit me as a kid. I didn’t know what made it work at the time, but all that echo and tremolo gave his songs a Morricone-ish sense of space, a real lonesome sound, which appealed to me. Now, when I listen to my first record (Lookout, 1996), it’s clear as day: I was making up blues melodies and relocating ’em down in the low register, like Duane would. It helped give me a different sound. I’d initially be thinking Hop Wilson, T-Bone Walker, Big Jay McNeely, or Louis Jordan, but then I’d pull that melody way down onto the low strings and it’d come off something like Duane Eddy jamming with Earl Hooker in a juke joint. – Rick Holmstrom
Have “Twangy” Guitar Will Travel was the first album cover I ever saw with a guitar player. I was five or six and a few years from having my own guitar, but the cover had a vibe, and the sound was completely bewildering. Bigsby, tremolo, deep low-string bends, and aggressive attack – I didn’t know what any of it was, but I loved everything about it. Duane Eddy set the standard for tone and taste, and he always honored the melody. That’s something I take with me and apply to every aspect of my life: Honor The Melody.
When I got to accompany him on “Rebel Rouser” at the Americana Music Awards at the Ryman Auditorium, he played through two Twin Reverbs cranked to 10, but it was his hands and his heart making the music. A soulful and deceptively simple player whose playing reflected his kind spirit and always honoring the melody. Duane Eddy was king. – Buddy Miller
I met Duane in the mid ’80s, when Fred Newell invited me to a get-together at his Nashville home, and I was thrilled that Duane brought along not only his iconic 6120, but his Dano six-string bass and Guild Duane Eddy model, too. He invited me to play them all, and then we jammed. I was surprised at his fingerpicking abilities. He sounded amazing. At one point during “Nine Pound Hammer,” he played a lick that stopped me cold. I demanded that he show it to me right then and there! He got quite a laugh out of my enthusiasm, and patiently explained and taught it to me. That inspiration and kindness I have never forgotten, and I feel so very grateful that my path crossed with such a gentleman. Duane was the model of how a “guitar hero” can be, with a heart just as big as his engulfing guitar tone. The whole world will miss him. – John Jorgenson
My first guitar hero that became a pal. I miss him. – Garry Tallent
Those of us who started playing guitar in the mid ’50s and early ’60s were all influenced by Duane Eddy, of course. During that time his music was all over pop radio. I played his songs in clubs for a long time. He is part of my history. I had the pleasure of meeting Duane in the ’70s and hanging out. He was such a humble gentleman and very nice man to be around. Duane, thanks for your rock and roll. – Larry Carlton
I met Duane Eddy when I was 15 years old and still living in Phoenix. He treated me as a contemporary and not like the kid that I was. We’ve been friends ever since. I’ve known Duane so long that it sometimes eclipsed who he was. I’d often find myself driving home from a visit thinking, “Holy cow, I just had lunch with Duane Eddy.” How many guitar players can you think of that own that much real estate on the instrument? Anyone who plays a note on the fourth string or lower evokes the name Duane Eddy. I already miss him more than I can say. – Richard Bennett
“DeArmond neck pickup, Fender amp, and have the engineer boost 1K on the mic.” That was what he always told me. Duane was such a wonderful cat. I was extremely fortunate to have had the experience of working with him both onstage and in the studio. What a guy! – Kenny Vaughan
My relationship with my first guitar hero, Duane Eddy, took place entirely by phone until this year, and I wish I had all those conversations on tape. His stories were priceless – from swapping his Gretsch with Buddy Holly’s Strat before going onstage, to touring the U.K. with Bobby Darin, who was rattled by Duane’s status there, and hanging out with Frank Sinatra at his home in Palm Springs.
You couldn’t hope to meet a sweeter, nicer guy. He was humble, and he cared about you, despite his own health issues. His life provided inspiration and joy, not only to guitarists, but to music lovers all over the world. I’ll always treasure my face-to-face meeting with him in February at his home. We played together a bit, and I was able to film him doing a cameo in a video for my song, “Cadillac Man.” Duane will remain a true living legend, to me and, I’m sure, scores of others. – Rick Vito
Duane Eddy was the epitome of tone, taste, and restraint – which is the recipe all should adhere to. – Redd Volkaer
This article originally appeared in VG’s July 2024 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
