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Eddie Van Halen
KC Darlin Programme Director Radiodowntown.ca
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020) was an American musician and songwriter. He was the main songwriter and guitarist of the American rock band Van Halen, which he co-founded in 1972 with his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, bassist Mark Stone, and singer David Lee Roth. He is regarded as one of the all-time greatest guitar players in rock history and was well known for popularizing the tapping guitar solo technique, allowing rapid arpeggios to be played with two hands on the fretboard.
Born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Edward Lodewijk van Halen was a son of Jan van Halen and Eugenia (née van Beers). Jan was a Dutch jazz pianist, clarinetist and saxophonist, and Eugenia was an Indo (Eurasian) from Rangkasbitung on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies. The family eventually settled in Nijmegen, Netherlands.
In 1962, the Van Halen family moved from the Netherlands to the United States, settling in Pasadena, California. Eddie and his older brother, Alex Van Halen, became naturalized U.S. citizens. The brothers learned to play the piano as children starting at the age of six. They commuted from Pasadena to San Pedro to study with an elderly piano teacher, Stasys Kalvaitis.
Van Halen was never taught to read music; instead, he would watch recitals of Bach or Mozart and improvise. From 1964 through 1967, he won first place in the annual piano competition held at Long Beach City College. His parents wanted the boys to be classical pianists, but Van Halen gravitated towards rock music. Greatly influenced by British Invasion bands The Beatles and The Dave Clark Five. Consequently, when Alex began playing the guitar, Eddie bought a drum kit for himself; however, after he heard Alex’s performance of the Surfaris’ drum solo in the song “Wipe Out”, he gave Alex the drums and began learning how to play the electric guitar. According to him, as a teen he would often practice while walking around at home with his guitar strapped on or sitting in his room for hours with the door locked.
Van Halen and his brother Alex formed their first band with three other boys, calling themselves The Broken Combs, performing at lunchtime at Hamilton Elementary School in Pasadena, when he was in the fourth grade. He would later cite this performance as key to his desire to become a professional musician.
Van Halen described supergroup Cream’s “I’m So Glad” on the album Goodbye as “mind-blowing”.He once claimed that he had learned almost all of Eric Clapton’s solos in the band Cream “note for note... I’ve always said Eric Clapton was my main influence,” he said, “but Jimmy Page was actually more the way I am, in a reckless- abandon kind of way.”
Speaking at an event at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in 2015, Van Halen discussed his life and the American Dream saying “We came here with approximately $50 and a piano, and we didn’t speak the language. Now look where we are. If that’s not the American dream, what is?”
Born Edward Lodewijk van Halen January 26, 1955
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Died October 6, 2020 (aged 65) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
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