Eddy, Duane

(1938.03.26-    )  Guitarist, composer.

Lived in Phoenix

When Duane Eddy arrived in Phoenix as a teen in 1955, he had been playing a guitar for a dozen years.  Local disc jockey and promoter Lee Hazlewood saw a future for the boy with the twangy red Gretsch guitar and teemed up with him.  Hazelwood had Eddy and his band on a weekly Saturday night radio show on KCKY in Coolidge.  In 1957 they appeared on "The Hit Parade" hosted by Ray Odom on Phoenix television station KTVK.

Eddy recorded his first record at AudioRecorder, a small studio operated by Floyd Ramsey.  The studio, located behind a barber shop at 3703 N. 7th Street in Phoenix, was where Marty Robbins, Wayne Newton, Waylon Jennings, and Richie Hart also did their early recordings.  For Eddy's twangy guitar sound, the studio bought a 2500 gallon water tank and used it with a tape delay to achieve a "tinny, funky sound."

By 1958, Eddy had signed with Dick Clark's Jamie label and had a record reaching number six on the pop record charts--"Rebel 'Rouser" (1958).  When he was 25, he had a string of fourteen more top forty hits, most of them instrumentals.  He recorded the theme "The Ballad Of Paladin" for the CBS television show Have Gun Will Travel (1957-1963), and music for the movies A Thunder Of Drums (1961), The Wild Westerners (1962), The Savage Seven (1968) and Kona Coast (1968).

Eddy's music experienced a resurgence when "Rebel 'Rouser" was used in the movie Forrest Gump (1994) as Forrest was chased across a football field by a pick-up truck loaded with rednecks.  Oliver Stone used Eddy's "The Trembler" to set the tone in a scene of Natural Born Killers (1994).

Duane Eddy was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.