Duane Eddy, a pioneering guitar hero whose reverberating electric sound on instrumentals such as 'Rebel Rouser' and “Peter Gunn” helped put the twang in early rock 'n' roll and influenced George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and countless other musicians, has died at age 86. Eddy died of cancer Tuesday at the Williamson Health hospital in Franklin, Tennessee, according to his wife, Deed Abbate.
'” Eddy had a five-year commercial peak from 1958-63. He said in 1993 he took his 1970 hit 'Freight Train' as a clue to slow down. 'It was an easy listening hit,' he recalled. 'Six or seven years before, I was on the cutting edge.' Eddy recorded more than 50 albums, some of them reissues. He did not work too much from the 1980s on, 'living off my royalties,' he said in 1986.