I was shocked to learn the legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen had died.
Eddie was a rock music innovator to took the art of playing guitar to new heights. The musician along with his brother Alex founded the band Van Halen in 1972. That band quickly grew into one of the most influential hard rock acts of the 70s and 80s . Van Halen's live performances were known for being an energetic, over-the-top affairs that showcased the band's signature sound. No one who ever saw Van Halen live would ever forget it.
Here is an obituary from Rolling Stone:
Eddie Van Halen, the legendary guitar innovator and virtuoso who led Van Halen through five decades and three lead singers, establishing himself as one of the all-time great players in rock history, died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. He was 65.“I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning,” his son Wolfgang Van Halen wrote. “He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a gift. My heart is broken and I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from this loss.”
“Heartbroken and speechless,” added Sammy Hagar. “My love to the family.”
Were it not for his titanic influence, hard rock after the late 1970s would have evolved in unimaginably different ways. He may not have invented two-handed tapping, but he perfected the practice and introduced it to a mass audience. Yet despite his complete mastery of the electric guitar, he never learned to read music.
Even through Montrose’s Sammy Hagar replacing original frontman David Lee Roth in 1985, Van Halen ruled the rock world from their explosive self-titled LP in 1978 — perhaps the most perfect debut by any group in rock history — all the way to the mid-1990s, when they parted ways with Hagar. The 2000s were marked by battles with alcohol, erratic public behavior, and nostalgic reunion tours with Hagar and Roth, but very little in the way of new music.
Still, no matter who was fronting the group or when they had their last hit, fans never stopped flocking to Van Halen concerts to worship at the altar of Eddie Van Halen. “I suppose what bothers me is that often the kids don’t even notice when I’m bad,” he told Rolling Stone. “I come offstage and get compliments up the ass. That’s so frustrating.”
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was born in Nijmegen, Netherlands, on January 26th, 1955, a year and half after his older brother, Alex. His father, Jan, was gifted at the clarinet, saxophone, and piano. “It was difficult to make money playing his type of music,” Eddie told Rolling Stone in 1995. “So he joined the [Dutch] air force band, and he played marches. Every morning at six o’clock he’d have to go up there freezing his ass off and play marches. We’d listen to all those march records, and Al and I would parade around the table in the living room and take pots and pans, doing all that kind of stuff. And at night we’d hear him playing classical music downstairs. He loved classical and jazz.”
Here are some Eddie Van Halen classics:
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