Duane Eddy. The very name is synonymous with a sound: simple melodies played on the low strings, enhanced with tremolo, deep reverb and a feathering of the whammy bar. In a word – the word that became Eddy’s badge of distinction for over 60 years – twang.
On a chilly April night at the Opry House, the iconic home of Nashville’s century-old Grand Ole Opry radio show, a star-studded roster is taking to the stage for the Titan Of Twang: A Celebration of Duane Eddy.
Guitar World is here to pay our own respects, following his death last year and to try to figure out what it is about Eddy”s playing that can still draw together a line-up of guitar greats classic and contemporary.
The bill sees the likes of Peter Frampton, Vince Gill and Albert Lee rubbing shoulders with Grace Bowers and blues-rock firebrand Toby Lee. Joe Bonamassa is in the building, as is Steve Earle, JD McPherson, and a host of other musical talent.
The glowing image of Eddy watches proceedings from above, and at stage right, in a spotlight, his trademark Gretsch 6120 sits with his fedora on the headstock.
“His sound was really compelling because it was not a ton of information,” Vince Gill says ahead of his performance. “It was minimal, part-driven and always memorable. For guitarists it’s a great lesson to relearn, over and over again, how important the melody is.”
Many in the audience are of a vintage who can remember buying Eddy singles like Rebel Rouser and Peter Gunn in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Yet what unfolds over the next two-and-a-half hours is a testament to how his influence has not only cut across genres, but generations.
Those thundering Eddy lines have become a key part of the DNA of rock guitar and, whether modern players remain conscious of it or not, his playing is a building block for the instrument.
Eddy was born in New York in 1938 and started playing guitar at age five. When he was a teenager his family moved to Phoenix. The vastness of the surrounding desert set him dreaming of how he might convey it with his guitar.
Later, working with producer Lee Hazlewood, that’s exactly what he did – scoring a staggering 34 Top 40 hits in the US and UK, including Rebel Rouser, Cannonball and Movin’ and Groovin’.
It’s easy to forget the sheer scale of his success – and that he did it all through instrumental tracks, letting his guitar do the talking. Indeed, he remains the most successful instrumentalist of the rock era.
The Titan of Twang show is both a tribute and a timely reminder of his legacy. Covers of those early hits conjure up a lost era of beach parties (McPherson on Yep and Ramrod) drag races (Albert Lee on Forty Miles Of Bad Road) and spy capers (Henry Mancini’s Peter Gunn).
While songs inspired directly by Eddy – Steve Earle’s Guitar TownBill Lloyd’s Whoa!Toby Lee’s Stingray and Molly Tuttle and Grace Bower’s White Rabbit – show that his sound still reverberates through country, blues, psychedelia, rock ’n’ roll and even jazz.
The latter is evident in Joe Bonamassa’s swinging cover of Bye Bye Bluestaken from Eddy’s 1967 album The Roaring Twangies. Lacing the melody between stair-stepping horn lines and walking bass, Bonamassa cops Eddy’s signature sound, with a touch of Les Paul thrown in. “I’ve been practicing that all week!” he tells the crowd.
“Duane Eddy was one of those incredibly rare guitar players who didn’t need a vocalist to sing a song,” is how Bonamassa puts it, direct to Guitar World.
“His use of space, sound, vibrato, and songwriting transcended anything that could have been sung over those songs – Peter Gunn doesn’t need a vocal – and he created a sound that we all copy today.
“Before he created that sound, nothing sounded like it. He just used simple gear to create this wonderful twang that had never been done before. None of the musical instrument manufacturers envisioned that their equipment would be used in such a way to create such a sound.”
The blues ace is followed tonight by Gill (who’s flown in from the Eagles’ residency at the Las Vegas Sphere) trading tasteful, steel-like licks with Bowers on country weeper Making Believe and his own hit Whenever You Come Around.
When The Beatles played a low E, it sounded like a low E. When Duane plays it, it sounds an octave lower!
George Harrison
Of all the accomplished players on the bill, the one who sounds most in tune with Eddy’s spirit is Albert Lee. He knew him first as a fan, then as a friend.
“I saw him play the infamous concert at the Lewisham Odeon,” Lee tells Guitar World, referencing Eddy’s breakthrough show in England, in 1960.
“He was opening for Bobby Darin and the audience were going, ‘We want Duane! We want Duane!’ Poor Bobby was backstage, almost in tears – from there on, Duane finished the shows out.”
Music paper Disc said of that show: “The twang flooded the auditorium until the very walls vibrated. Duane tried at first to announce the numbers, but the roar of applause was as unstoppable as Niagara Falls.”
It’s not surprising the moment left an impression. Years later – following his dismissal from Eric Clapton’s notorious late ’70s band – Lee got to know Eddy through his work with mutual friends the Everly Brothers, and fondly remembers Eddy stopping by his house with his old Gretsch.
“Later I did a gig with him at the Baked Potato in LA,” Lee recalls. “Eric was in the audience with Jeff Beck and Jan Hammer; they were there digging us! They’d come to see Duane, not knowing I was playing second guitar with him.”
Eddy made being a guitarist look cool to a generation of teenagers – Clapton, Beck and Albert Lee, included.
On the cover of his 1958 debut Have Twangy Guitar Will Travelhe’s perched on a hardshell case, quiffed and staring pensively, looking like a cross between James Dean and Jack Kerouac – he’s the hipster troubadour.
The instrument inside that case, an orange Gretsch 6120 hollow-body, still holds sway over guitarists. In the Opry lobby there’s a long line at the Gretsch Guitars booth, players waiting to try the latest DE series reissues. Along with Chet Atkins and George Harrison, Eddy is probably the best salesman the brand have had.
Speaking of Harrison, the show is interspersed with video messages from artists and fans, one of whom is Harrison’s widow, Olivia.
She recalls how George was excited and nervous when he got to record two songs with for Eddy’s 1987 self-titled album – The tremble and Theme For Something Really Important. “He was like a kid meeting his hero,” she recalls.
In turn, it reminds me of a great quote from Harrison: “When The Beatles played a low E, it sounded like a low E. When Duane plays it, it sounds an octave lower!”
Duane was a shining example of great phrasing, great melodies and less-is-more. It’s such a one-of-a-kind sound
Vince Gill
Another message of love is beamed in from Bruce Springsteen. Holding his Telecaster backstage before a show, he says, “Without Duane Eddy, there’d be no…” He picks the low-string riff from Born To Run and signs off with: “Duane, rest in peace, and play on in that big house of a thousand guitars. We love you.”
The Opry House feels a fitting venue for the tribute given its poignant location in the city Eddy called home from 1985. The ace backing band includes local session cats who’d collaborated with him, including guitarist-producer Richard Bennett, E Street Band bassist Garry Tallent and Linda Ronstadt’s steel guitarist Dan Dugmore.
After Frampton closes his set with Rebel Rouser and While My Guitar Gently Weepseveryone gathers on stage for the finale of Peter Gunn. and we see what’s surely the best part of Eddy’s legacy: the pure joy of playing a riff on the guitar.
Buddy Miller perhaps describes it best: “Duane was the master of cool. His sound had such elegance and tone. But really, it was all in his hands – and in his heart.”
- Titan Of Twang: A Celebration of Duane Eddy will be aired by NPT in the near future.
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