Trivia

Noted guitarist and composer who churned out a slew of highly charted instrumental hits in the late '50s and '60s ("Rebel Rouser","Cannonball", "Yep", "Forty Miles Of Bad Road","Because They're Young", "Pepe","Peter Gunn", "Boss Guitar"), best known for his "twangy" guitar riffs.

Inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Is mentioned in the song "Life Is a Rock But the Radio Rolled Me" by Reunion.

Covered the song "Sugarfoot Rag" by Hank Garland, in the early '60s. It appeared again on his album, "The RCA Years: 1962-1964" released in 1999.

Appears as himself in the documentary film Danger God (2018).

Eddy's records were consistently even more successful in the UK than they were in his native United States, and in 1960, readers of the UK's NME voted him World's Number One Musical Personality, ousting Elvis Presley.

Eddy performed at the Glastonbury Festival on June 26, 2011.

Among those who have acknowledged Eddy's influence are George Harrison, Dave Davies, Hank Marvin, the Ventures, John Entwistle, Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty, Adrian Belew, Bill Nelson, Mark Knopfler, and Ben Vaughn.

He scored theme music for movies including Because They're Young (1960), Pepe (1960) and Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961). But Eddy said he turned down doing the James Bond theme song because there wasn't enough guitar music in it.

Paul McCartney and George Harrison were fans of Eddy, and he recorded with both of them after their Beatles' days. He played on McCartney's "Rockestra Theme" and Harrison played on Eddy's self-titled comeback album, both in 1987.

He began playing the guitar at the age of five.

Duane Eddy is an American rock and roll guitarist. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he had a string of hit records produced by Lee Hazlewood, which were noted for their characteristically "twangy" sound, including "Rebel-'Rouser", "Peter Gunn", and "Because They're Young".

Duane Eddy was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2008.

Played guitar on a custom-made Chet Atkins model Gretch.

Lived in California in the late 60s, before moving to Lake Tahoe in Nevada in 1976.

His instrumental 60s hits featured a signature staccato riff called the 'twangy' guitar sound.

In 2000, at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, the title "Titan of Twang" was bestowed upon Eddy by mayor Bill Purcell.

Duane Eddy and the Rebels became a frequent act on The Dick Clark Show.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2008.

In 1960, Eddy signed a contract directly with Jamie Records, bypassing Sill and Hazlewood. This caused a temporary rift between Eddy and Hazlewood. The result was that for the duration of his contract with Jamie, Eddy produced his own singles and albums.

In the early days of recording in the RCA Victor studios, he renewed contact with Lee Hazlewood, who became involved in a number of his RCA Victor singles and albums. Eddy's 1962 single release, "(Dance With The) Guitar Man", co-written with Hazlewood, earned his third gold disc by selling a million records.

Eddy was the first rock and roll guitarist to have a signature model guitar, as in 1961 the Guild Guitar Company introduced the Duane Eddy signature models DE-400 and the deluxe DE-500. A limited edition of the DE-500 model was reissued briefly in 1983 to mark Eddy's 25th anniversary in the recording industry.

In 2004, Eddy was presented with the Guitar Player Magazine "Legend Award". Eddy was the second recipient of the award, the first being presented to Les Paul.

Eddy's "Rebel Rouser" was featured that same year in Forrest Gump. Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers used "The Trembler", a track written by Eddy and Ravi Shankar.

His hit "Rebel-'Rouser", featured a overdubbed saxophone by Los Angeles session musician Gil Bernal, and yells and handclaps by doo-wop group the Rivingtons. The tune became Eddy's breakthrough hit, reaching number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It sold over one million copies, earning Eddy his first gold disc.

Eddy recorded more than 50 albums, some of them reissues. He did not work too much from the 1980s on, "living off my royalties," he said in 1986.

Eddy and producer Lee Hazlewood helped create the "Twang" sound in the 1950s, a sound Hazlewood later adapt to his production of Nancy Sinatra's 1960s smash "These Boots Are Made for Walkin.'".

With his raucous rhythms, backing hollers and hand claps, 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.

He had sold 12 million records by 1963.

At the age of 16 he formed a duo, Jimmy and Duane, with his friend Jimmy Delbridge (who later recorded as Jimmy Dell).

In 1958, Eddy signed a recording contract with Lester Sill and Lee Hazlewood to record in Phoenix at the Audio Recorders studio. Sill and Hazlewood leased the tapes of all the singles and albums to the Philadelphia-based Jamie Records.

In November 1957, Eddy recorded an instrumental, "Movin' n' Groovin'", co-written by Eddy and Hazlewood. As the Phoenix studio had no echo chamber, Hazlewood bought a 2,000-gallon (7570-litre) water storage tank that he used as an echo chamber to accentuate the "twangy" guitar sound.

For an 80th-birthday tour in 2018, Eddy returned to the UK in concerts with Liverpudlian singer-songwriter Robert Vincent, performing on October 23 at the London Palladium, and October 30 at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.

At the age of 16 he formed a duo with his friend Jimmy Delbridge. While performing at local radio station KCKY, they met disc jockey Lee Hazlewood, who produced the duo's single, "Soda Fountain Girl", recorded and released in 1955 in Phoenix, Arizona.

His song "Movin' n' Groovin'" reached number 72 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1958; the opening riff, borrowed from Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", was in turn copied a few years later by the Beach Boys on "Surfin' U.S.A.".

He spent his teen years in Arizona dreaming of singing on the Grand Ole Opry.

In the 1970s he worked behind-the-scenes in music production work, mainly in Los Angeles.

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.

Duane Eddy grew up in Phoenix, where he began playing guitar at age 5.

Eddy later toured with Dick Clark's "Caravan of Stars" and appeared in Because They're Young and A Thunder of Drums (1961), among other movies.