Duane Eddy

Born April 26, 1938 in Corning, New York, Duane Eddy began playing guitar at five years of age before his family moved to Arizona where as a teenager he would meet a local disc jockey, Lee Hazlewood, who encouraged him to develop a unique sound that would become his signature. In the summer of 1958, he blended his twangy guitar with a honking saxophone and rebel yells that leaped out of the radio, landing on the Hit Parade with a million seller - “Rebel-Rouser.” “Ramrod” and “Cannonball” would follow before in the following year of 1959 six more hits were top 40 favorites, “The Lonely One,” “Yep,” “The Quiet Three,” “Some Kind-a Earthquake,” “First Love, First Tears” and his second gold record “Forty Miles of Bad Road.” With “Because They’re Young,” a motion picture theme earning Duane a third gold record in 1960, television themes “Peter Gunn” and “The Ballad of Paladin” were also hits along with “Pepe,” “Dance With The Guitar Man” and “Boss Guitar.” Credited with selling more than 100 million albums and singles worldwide, Duane Eddy, the actor, appeared in several motion pictures and TV series, is a Grammy Award winner and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.