For My 11th birthday, my brother Bill gave me 2 brand new albums: Powerage by AC/DC, and an album by some new band Id never heard of called Van Valen. I put the AC/DC album on right away and loved it. It took me days before I even bothered to play the Van Halen record. The first song was Runnin With The Devil- I was like alright, that rocks. The next song that came on was called Eruption- a guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen. I.COULDNT.BELIEVE.MY.YOUNG.EARS. I listened to it over and over again. I was convinced that it HAD to have been overdubbed and couldnt possibly have been just one guitar. Needless to say, I devoured that album and every VH album after it. I basically taught myself how to play guitar by slowing down those records (by placing my finger on the record- this is WAY before digital, yo!) and learning those solos. Eddie Van Halen was my Guitar God! Some people tend to dismiss EVHs talent, partly because there are so many players these days that can do (technically) what Eddie did. But what you have to keep in mind is the context of what was going on at that time musically: NOBODY had ever played guitar like that before. When Eruption came out, it was like an alien had landed on Earth and completely reinvented what a guitar could sound like and what you could do with it. Eddie Van Halen was the Jimi Hendrix of my generation, and, much like Hendrix did, changed the way virtually every guitarist played the instrument forever. I was lucky enough to have met Eddie in Koln, Germany. I was playing with the Deanna Bogart Band, and we had just finished playing an outdoor show that happened to be right outside of the hotel that Van Halen was staying in. Long story short (which is a great story, but this post is already novel-length) I was able to shake his hand and tell him to his face what a huge impact he had on me as a player. Hell, I had just finished playing a gig IN GERMANY!! If it hadnt been for him raising the musical bar for me at 11 years old, I may never have become good enough to be where I was that day. So Happy 60th Birthday Eddie Van Halen, And Thank You!! youtu.be/sI7XiJgt0vY
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 22:40:28 +0000
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