Duane Eddy was born in Corning, New York in 1938 and was playing the guitar by the time he was 5 years old. As a teenager he moved (with family) to Arizona, eventually arriving in Phoenix in 1955. Local Phoenix disc jockey/music promoter Lee Hazlewood liked Duane's work and the two began a long professional association. The two men introduced a new concept into Duane's guitar playing that came to be known as his twangy guitar. Duane has used a red Gretsch guitar for so many years that it has become his trademark. The single-note melodies, strong and dramatic, would be combined with a bending of the bass strings with the sound amplified to produce the unique sound. Similar twangy tones would also be heard from Dick Dale and other contemporaries, but Duane had done it first.
A recording contract was arranged with Dick Clark's Jamie label and Duane's second single, Rebel-'Rouser, proved to be one of his biggest hits ever. All of the ingredients for a hit song came together on Rebel-'Rouser: rebel yells and handclaps in the background furnished by the Rivingtons, a new sound, and of course the twangy guitar. It reached number six on the charts and established Duane Eddy in the minds of the record-buying public in 1958. He was twenty years old.
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Rebel 'Rouser composed by Lee Hazlewood - Digital Sheet Music