Duane Eddy
A: Cannonball
B: Mason Dixon Lion
(London 1958)
I don't know if you ever peruse the lists of greatest ever guitarists that you occasionally find in music magazines (and probably on the internet too these days), but I would have a skim through them. It depends on the publication as to who'd be on the list. A more populist one would probably have the likes of Clapton and May in there - the kind of chaps most people would have heard of. The more guitar specialist ones would end up with people like Vai and Malmsteen heading the lists - the kind of people who can play lots of notes really fast, but are less fussed about actually melody. I'd look for three people on those lists: Hank Marvin (he'd usually be there somewhere), Bert Weedon (often in the British lists), and Duane Eddy (often completely absent). The frequent absence of Duane Eddy is something that still bothers me today. He is someone who played solid guitar rock 'n' roll instrumentals and between about 1958 and 1963 was a constant presence in the charts. Maybe much of tunes were simple, but I reckon that they weren't simplistic. They were certainly catchy and danceable, and therefore I reckon that his contribution to the popularisation of guitar music has been understated.
You'll recognise a Duane Eddy record is you hear it - as with all the true greats, you can tell it's them playing just from a few notes. The booming, bassy, echoing sound, became his trademark. if you need one word to describe Duane Eddy's sound it's TWANG! He (or at least his marketing guys) recognised this because there are many albums that have some variation of this word in them:
Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel, The Twang's The Thang, $1,000,000 Worth of Twang, you get the picture! Look at the record label above - the twangy guitar gets second billing above the rest of the band.
If ever there was a typical Duane Eddy track that you could point to and say, that's what he's all about the Cannonball is that track. A twangy (really no other word for it) upbeat repeated riff, that starts off rocking and builds tempo, adding in finger clips, and claps, then the saxophone and yelps as it builds up momentum. The suddenly the saxophone breaks loose and goes wild for short period, before returning to the steady rocking riff ready to build up that momentum again. This is good stuff.
If you're naming an instrumental one way is to give it an evocative name - something that connects the sounds to a strong feeling of time or place. Alternatively you could use a stupid pun, like Mason Dixon Lion, (both ways are valid, but I do prefer one - no prizes for guessing which). This b-side is very similar in feel to the a-side - maybe a bit slower in tempo - but a bassy looping guitar riff, with less yelping , but some whistling and La-La-ing from the backing singers. Once again heading to a middle bit where the saxophonist goes wild (I'm not really much of a saxophone phone fan, but a wise bear once told me that to appreciate a Duane Eddy record you need to appreciate the saxophone, and this is very true), before settling back down in to the groove of the tune.
So there you go a - both sides equate to a single 4-minute party on one slab of 7 inch vinyl. Nothing here to transcend the nature of being or to make you reach new heights of revelation, just a bit of loose and wild fun something we can all do with in these times.
Next time we're of to the Eurovision Song Contest...
