Duane Eddy born April 26th, 1938 in Corning, New York, began playing at age five, emulating his cowboy hero, Gene Autry. His family moved west to Phoenix, Arizona, in the early Fifties, where Duane met his longtime partner, co-writer and producer, Lee Hazlewood.
Together, they created a successful formula based upon Duane’s unique approach to the guitar, and Lee’s experimental vision in the recording studio.
Eddy introduced a unique, twangy sound to Rock and Roll guitar. As John Fogerty wrote in Rolling Stone about his style; “It was one of those untouchable, unique things…Duane Eddy was the front guy, the first rock & roll guitar god.” Combining strong, dramatic, single-note melodies, the bending of the low strings, and a combination of echo, vibrato bar (Bigsby), and tremolo, he produced a signature sound that was unlike anything yet heard - the sound that would be featured on an unprecedented string of thirty-four chart singles, fifteen of which made the top forty and sales of over 100 million worldwide.
Later in his career, Eddy was interviewed by John Fogerty for Musician magazine about his style. Fogerty called it ‘”big” both in a sense of it being new and the actual sound quality itself. Eddy told Fogerty, “I knew we had to have something big… We did go for a big sound. I have to give a lot of credit to Lee Hazlewood. He mixed things for AM radio in those days so that they would come rockin out of the radio.”
