Duane Eddy

by Richie Unterberger
If Duane Eddys instrumental hits from the late 50s can sound unduly basic and repetitive (especially when taken all at once), he was vastly influential. Perhaps the most successful instrumental rocker of his time, he may have also been the man most responsible (along with Chuck Berry) for popularizing the electric rock guitar. His distinctively low, twangy riffs could be heard on no less than 15 Top 40 hits between 1958 and 1963. He was also one of the first rock stars to successfully crack the LP market.
That low, twangy sound was devised in collaboration with producer Lee Hazlewood, an Arizona disc jockey whom Eddy had met while hanging out at a radio station as a teenager. By the late 50s, Hazlewood had branched out into production. Before Duane began recording, his principal influence had been Chet Atkins, but at Hazlewoods suggestion, he started concentrating on guitar lines at the lower end of the strings. His opening riff of his debut single, Movin and Groovin, would be lifted for the Beach Boys five years later to open Surfin U.S.A. It was the next 45, Rebel Rouser, that would really break up him as a national star, reaching the Top Ten in 1958. Opening with a down-and-dirty, heavily echoed guitar riff, it remains the tune with which hes most often identified.
Eddys phenomenally successful run of hits over the next few years was to some extent a variation on the Rebel Rouser theme. With cowboy whoops from the backup band helping drive things along, they werent nearly as innovative as work of Link Wray during the same era, but they were much more popular. The singles — Peter Gunn, Cannonball, Shazam, and Forty Miles of Bad Road were probably the best — also did their part to help keep the raunchy spirit of rock & roll alive, during a time in which it was in danger of being watered down. Much of that raunch was not solely due to Eddy himself, but to the honking sax solos of Steve Douglas, who would go on to become one of the top session players in the industry. Duane would have his biggest hit, however, in 1960, when he sweetened the twang with strings for the movie theme Because Theyre Young.
Eddys records were also huge influences on legions of budding guitar players. In England, the Shadows no doubt took Eddy as one of their chief inspirations for their spare, moody sound, as one listen to their most famous hit, Apache, makes obvious. More subtly, his influence can also be heard in the work of George Harrison. For evidence, listen to the growling riffs that decorate the verse of I Want to Hold Your Hand.
Eddy started to lose momentum in the early 60s, and left the Jamie label in 1962 for the much bigger RCA. (Dance With The) Guitar Man, which featured an atypical chorus of female vocals, would be his last Top 20 hit that same year. His albums — often based on loose themes, like A Million Dollars Worth of Twang, Twisting With Duane Eddy, and Surfing With Duane Eddy — kept him afloat to some degree. But his style doggedly refused evolution, although scattered cuts indicate he was capable of abandoning the twang for more bluesy or straight-out rock sounds. The British Invasion wiped Duane out commercially, although he recorded intermittently over the next couple of decades. In 1986, he enjoyed a brief comeback when the Art of Noise built their Peter Gunn hit around his guest contributions; Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ry Cooder, and Jeff Lynne all helped produce a 1987 album. Its that run of late-50s and early-60s hits, though, for which hell principally be remembered.