And this evening when I checked my FB feed I got a shocker. It was in a post made by one of my guitar heroes, Billy Duffy (of The Cult): Eddie Van Halen passed away yesterday, after a long battle with throat cancer.
Eddie Van Halen's passing hits me on a couple levels. On one level, he was an awe inspiring guitar player. I think of all the guitarists out there -- especially rock guitarists -- and he was the apex of the craft, the absolute master. Of course, when talking about guitarists, it's all apples and oranges: I'm sure that BB King aficionados would say I'm wrong in what I just said, but all that aside, I think there is no doubt that when the first Van Halen album came out in 1978 it was more of a game changer than any previous rock band's efforts, just on the guitar work alone.
On another level, Eddie's passing hits me closer to home, as my father passed away after a short fight with lung cancer in August of 1984 (he obviously had it longer than the three months he fought it).
Cancer is a horrible killer. They say much of it is preventable -- hopefully much of it is. But sometimes it hits people without warning. Dad smoked, so I suppose he loaded the dice in the wrong direction. Of course, his generation, that served in World War Two, weren't aware of connections between smoking and cancer. Either way, it's a horrible punch in the gut to see your family member die from it, and my heart goes out to Eddie's son and wife and his brother and the rest of his family.
One thing we can learn from Eddie Van Halen is persistence, and the art of honing your craft. It's said that he was constantly practicing on his guitar. I've seen interviews with him where he was noodling on one of his Franken-strats while either talking to an interviewer, or others in the band were talking to an interviewer, with Eddie just doing his thing -- playing guitar, even unamplified, with a smile on his face.
It's like he always wanted to have a guitar in his hand, and he loved practicing. He took it that seriously. It's one of the things that made him good -- he loved to practice.
I have been playing guitar for over 35 years and can say that only recently have I loved actually practicing. The rest of the time I was just going through chord work, getting good at rhythm... With lead licks I would work at it, but looking back I didn't work on it enough. I wasn't really practicing methodically and lick for lick with an intensity the way Eddie Van Halen did, or Eric Clapton apparently did -- going over each and every movement until it was perfect. It's one takeaway from Eddie's craft -- he worked and worked and worked and worked and worked to get it right.
And he did. :-)
He also was one of the rock guitarists who built his own guitar from parts, and changed music with it. Before Eddie Van Halen came on the scene, guitar players would buy guitar after guitar (unless they got lucky and found one that spoke to them) until they got the right one. Sometimes they would modify them (Eric Clapton took the pickup covers off of his Les Paul; Mick Ronson sanded the face of his Les Paul Custom) -- but Eddie took them all a step further: he literally built his main guitar, just before Van Halen recorded their first album. And it was his chief guitar for 20 years.
Eddie Van Halen playing his 'Frankenstrat' in the 1980's, after he repainted it.
As for his greater legacy, I'll sum up how I found Van Halen, and how I think their music changed rock and roll:
I still remember the first time I heard Van Halen. It was a late night at the student newspaper at a local college, and one of the guys, the chief editor TM Sell, had a boombox (this was before boomboxes were common, actually), playing FM. I think the station was KLAY Tacoma (who dropped rock years ago).
While we were editing and working on stories this spacey guitar sound came out of the boombox's speakers -- we thought it might be Montrose, or something similar, as KLAY played a lot of stuff that the Seattle stations didn't play. It turned out the song was "Atomic Punk", by Van Halen.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_qwtPLiy6o
This was when the first Van Halen album was out in the stores, but no one had really heard it yet. The band looked like a cross between Aerosmith and a punk band (the stripes on Eddie's guitar), just going by the cover alone. After hearing Atomic Punk, of course, I went out and got the album. Once I heard Eruption I knew that the way we looked at rock guitar had changed.
I never saw VH play live, unfortunately, except on the 'Tube, which rules for that.
I still think they were probably one of the best live acts historically: the amount of sound they got, and the upbeat, have-fun attitude. And the guitar, of course.
All one has to do is pull up the 'Largo' show on the 'Tube, and you get an in-your-face treat of the best rock America had to offer the world in the 1970's and 1980's. Tight drumming; awe inspiring rock guitar; thumping, tight rhythmed bass; a singer who loved to entertain; and all around fun!
For anyone interested in how rock reached an apex when Van Halen ruled the airwaves, this vid of the entire Largo concert is worth checking out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV1jp-0Ydqo
Like probably everyone, I'm saddened by Eddie's passing.
To me, it's similar to when when Chris Cornell died, except of course the circumstances are different. Even so, when one of your heroes passes, it's never a good feeling. It reminds me that we have to value every day above ground. Life is precious.
Rest In Peace, Eddie. You gave us an earful of awesome guitar work and many, many cool songs, and inspired nearly any guy or girl who picked up a guitar.
Eddie playing his Frankenstrat when it was still white and black... the guitar that changed rock music.
JOHNNY NASH, THE SINGER WHO BROUGHT REGGAE TO AMERICA
On a related note, American soul, pop, and reggae singer Johnny Nash died earlier today.
American R&B and reggae-pop singer Johnny Nash
I first heard Johnny Nash when he had his hit "I Can See Clearly Now", and I got the album, and loved it. It was my introduction to reggae.
It turns out that Johnny Nash was the first singer to bring reggae music to American pop, as his hit "Hold Me Tight" pre-dated Desmond Dekker's "Israelites" by at least a couple months.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x79a2qB5L-Q
2020 has been a pretty sucky year. I don't like seeing years that way, but they do tend to be either good years, poor ones, or just neutral. 1982-1986 were good years for me. So was 1991 and 1992. I especially miss the years 2000-2002, for a bunch of reasons. 2012 had its highlights, as did 2014. A lot of them are related to music, other years just reflect points in my life that bring better memories than others.
2020? The jury has already reached a verdict on this one. If we get to 2021 without more tragedies and bad news, I'll be happy.
