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Duane Eddy, King of the Twangy Guitar, Dead at 86

Duane Eddy, the twangy guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, has died at 86.

Duane Eddy, one of rock’s first guitar heroes and an idol of George Harrison, Jeff Beck, John Fogerty, Dan Auerbach, and many other guitar-slingers who followed, died Sunday at his home in Franklin, Tennessee. Arriving just a few years into the birth of rock & roll, “Rebel Rouser” announced that the raucous new genre was impacting even non-vocal music: The echoey, vibrato-drenched twang of Eddy’s guitar sounded like a space-age version of an Old West TV-series theme. “Rebel Rouser” ended up in the top 10, and Eddy followed it with other singles that capitalized on his signature sound, played with a red Gretsch guitar: The word twang appeared in the title of some of the nearly two dozen albums he released.

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