Duane Eddy, Whose Twang Changed Rock 'n' Roll, Dies at 86

By Bill Friskics-Warren

Bill Friskics-Warren reports on country music from Nashville for The New York Times.

Duane Eddy, who broke new ground in pop music in the 1950s with a reverberant, staccato style of guitar playing that became known as twang, died on Tuesday in Franklin, Tenn. He was 86.

The cause of his death, in a hospital, was complications of cancer, said his wife, Deed (Abbate) Eddy.

Mr. Eddy had tremendous success as a strictly instrumental recording artist in the late 1950s and '60s, selling millions of records worldwide with growling, echo-laden hits like "Rebel Rouser" and "Forty Miles of Bad Road." In the process, he played a major role in establishing electric guitar as the predominant musical instrument in rock 'n' roll.

Mr. Eddy influenced a multitude of rock guitarists, including George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Springsteen, whose plunging guitar lines on "Born to Run" pay homage to Mr. Eddy's muscular fretwork.

"Duane Eddy was the front guy, the first rock and roll guitar god," John Fogerty, the founding lead singer and guitarist of Creedence Clearwater Revival, is quoted as saying on the Rhino Records website.

Mr. Eddy, who was self-taught, devised his rhythmic melodicism by playing the lead lines on his guitar's bass strings and by liberally using the vibrato bar. He never learned to read or score music, but he had a strong ear for pop idioms, including country, jazz, and rhythm and blues.

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