Eddie Van Halen, grinning guitar god for a rock generation, dies at 65

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Eddie Van Halen, grinning guitar god for a rock generation, dies at 65
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Music fans are grieving the loss of rocker Eddie Van Halen. What is your favorite Van Halen song?

redefined the sound and possibilities of the electric guitar in the 1970s and ’80s, died on Tuesday at age 65. The cause was throat cancer.“I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning,” wrote his son,“He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a gift... I love you so much, Pop.

His iconic, road-battered guitar, named Frankenstein, was pieced together to his personal specifications in 1975 from the components of other instruments — a $50 body, a $75 neck, a single Humbucker pickup and crucial tremolo bar. With a red surface crisscrossed frantically with black and white stripes , it remains one of the most recognizable guitars in rock ’n’ roll.

At age 25, Van Halen married popular TV actress Valerie Bertinelli, 21, in a 1981 wedding swarmed by paparazzi. A decade later, they had a son, Wolfgang, who grew up to join the family business as bass player in the band. The couple separated in 2001 , in part because of the guitarist’s worsening drug and alcohol abuse, which eventually also helped destabilize the band.

An early rock inspiration was the Dave Clark Five, British Invasion hit-makers from the mid-1960s, and Van Halen learned as a teen to play along to favorite records by slowing down the turntable. In later years, he claimed to rarely listen to contemporary music other than his own but acknowledged the lasting influence of U.K. guitar hero Eric Clapton, in particular his years in the superheavy blues-rock trio Cream.

A typical 1975 live set in Pasadena might include cover songs by the Rolling Stones, Robin Trower, Bad Company and David Bowie, each stretched out in strange new ways on Van Halen’s hot-rod guitar. Even more exciting were the band’s original tunes, which were explosive but melodic. The guitarist was 22 when his band recorded a debut album, “Van Halen,” released Feb. 10, 1978. “Van Halen” soon hit the top 20.

On subsequent albums, the guitarist continued to evolve as a player. During the making of 1981’s “Fair Warning,” he secretly returned to the studio in the early morning hours to refine his solos alone with a recording engineer.In his memoir, “A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music,” Templeman writes: “He had profound things to say on the instrument. Guys tried to copy him, and none of them came close. He was like Charlie Parker or Errol Garner ... generational talents.

In 1982, producer Quincy Jones asked the guitarist to solo on Michael Jackson’s rock-leaning pop smash “Beat It.” Van Halen’s own crossover into the broader pop landscape was just ahead.

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