45s.com -- Recording Artist Information: Duane Eddy

Date Born	April 26, 1938
Location	Corning, New York
Music	Rock and country guitarist
Charted Pop/Rock Hits	28
Period Active	March 17, 1958 to 1986
Biggest Hits	Because They're Young, Rebel-'Rouser, Forty Miles Of Bad Road, (Dance With The) Guitar Man, Cannonball.
Music List and Data	Search Music List
Notable Information	Rock and Roll's all-time #1 instrumentalist.  Duane Eddy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
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Duane Eddy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.  The following information was obtained from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

One of the earliest guitar heroes, Duane Eddy put the twang in rock and roll. "Twang" is a reverberating, bass-heavy guitar sound boasted by primitive studio wizardry. Concocted by Eddy and producer Lee Hazlewood in 1957, twang came to represent the sound of revved-up hot rods and an echo of the Wild West on the frontier of rock and roll. Eddy obtained his trademark sound by picking on the low strings of a Chet Atkins-model Gretsch 6120 hollowbody guitar, turning up the tremolo and running the signal through an echo chamber. Behind the mighty sound of twang, Eddy became the most successful instrumentalist in rock history, charting fifteen Top Forty singles in the late Fifties and early Sixties. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.

Eddy was born in Corning, New York, in 1938. While in his early teens he moved with his family to Phoenix, where a demo tape found its way to the hands of Hazlewood, then a local disk jockey. Together, they hit upon a magic formula centered upon Eddy's unique playing style, which involved picking single-note melodies on the low strings. Eddy took pains to compose strong, dramatic melodies and to vary his style. Elements of country, jazz and gospel found its way into his instrumentals, which bore evocative titles like "Cannonball," "Rebel-'Rouser" and "Forty Miles of Bad Road." (His album titles, meanwhile, turned 1,001 bad puns on the word twang).

While the glory years of 1958-63 are long gone, the sound of Duane Eddy's guitar has reverberated through the decades. He cracked the Top Forty for the last time in 1963, with "Boss Guitar." But the twangy torch got passed to the guitar-playing bands of the British Invasion and beyond. A twangy guitar drove Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run," and twang echoes in the work of the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dave Edmunds, Chris Isaak and many more.