Duane Eddy: Pioneering 'Twang' guitarist has died aged 86

Duane Eddy, a pioneering guitar hero whose unique sound helped put the twang in early Rock 'n' Roll, has died at the age of 86.

Eddy died of cancer on Tuesday at the Williamson Health hospital in Franklin, Tennessee, according to his wife, Deed Abbate.

He sold more than 100 million records worldwide, mastered a distinctive sound and wrote several instrumental hits including 'Rebel Rouser' and 'Peter Gunn'.

“I had a distinctive sound that people could recognize and I stuck pretty much with that. I’m not one of the best technical players by any means; I just sell the best,” he said in a 1986 interview.

"A lot of guys are more skillful than I am with the guitar. A lot of it is over my head. But some of it is not what I want to hear out of the guitar.”

"Twang" defined Eddy’s sound from his first album, Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel, to his 1993 box set, Twang Thang: The Duane Eddy Anthology.

“It’s a silly name for a non-silly thing,” Eddy said in 1993. “But it has haunted me for 35 years now, so it’s almost like sentimental value - if nothing else.”

Eddy and producer Lee Hazlewood helped create the “Twang” sound in the 1950s, a sound Hazlewood later adapt to his production of Nancy Sinatra’s 1960s hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin.’”

Eddy was not a vocalist, saying in 1986, “One of my biggest contributions to the music business is not singing.”

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