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DUANE EDDY - A PERSONAL VIEW

By Gary Grainger

They say you should never meet your heroes. Well,

I met one of mine and it was wonderful. More

of that later.

My first taste of Duane Eddy came when, as a

young boy in the early Sixties, we were given

an old Dansette record player and a bunch of

singles. Of course, Duane was there – ‘Peter

Gunn’, ‘Rebel Rouser’, (‘Dance with the) Guitar

Man’. These were played over & over. I don’t know
where it came from, but we had a tennis racket

which, as expected, filled the guitar shaped hole

that I was desperate to fill.

Since then, I have loved

Duane’s music in

the m a n y
forms it has

taken. Theme

tunes for movies, TV

& radio shows. Even that Eighties

collaboration with Art of Noise – I
was glad that Duane was still

respected. A musician friend of mine

once mocked Duane for, apparently,

not knowing something about the

guitar strings he played. A very stern

look came from my direction.

And yes, Duane influenced not only

my guitar playing, but he is cited

as an influence by many others

too.