YEAR
1994
INDUCTED BY
Mick Jones (Foreigner)
CATEGORY
Performers
The rock and roll guitar god who invented twang.
Duane Eddy is a guitar hero. His five-year run of thrashing guitar will always be remembered for its dogged refusal to be watered down and its influence on the likes of George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Duane Eddy
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Michael Hill
Forget grunge and consider twang.
Twang, according to Webster’s, is, among other things, “a harsh ringing sound like that of a plucked bowstring.” Twang, according to Duane Eddy, is a reverberating, bass-heavy guitar sound bolstered by primitive studio wizardry.
Concocted by Eddy and producer Lee Hazelwood in 1957 in Phoenix, AZ, twang came to represent a walk on the wild side, late fifties-style: the sound of revved-up hotrods, for of rebels with or without a cause, an echo of the wild west on the frontier of rock & roll.
