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Eddie Van Halen and Johnny Nash, RIP.   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Wednesday, October 07, 2020 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

EDDIE VAN HALEN, whose razzle-dazzle guitar-playing — combining complex harmonics, innovative fingerings and ingenious devices he patented for his instrument — made him the most influential guitarist of his generation and his band, Van Halen, one of the most popular rock acts of all time, died on Tuesday. He was 65 and had a long bout with throat cancer. That's the NYT obit; Rolling Stone's has some of the key videos and a separate piece lists his Top 20 solos.  Here's the statement from his ex-wife, Valerie Bertinelli.  The tributes pour in, from Sammy Hagar to Pete Townshend to Billy Idol, to Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, to many more, collected at Pitchfork and Brooklyn Vegan.  I can't say I was a big Van Halen fan in their heyday, though I didn't dislike them; they simply weren't my genre, if you will.  And I heard them enough on the radio, which I mention to note Van Halen's cultural footprint.  Decades later, I was asked to take my nephew -- who was getting into rock and learning the guitar -- to Van Halen's 2007 reunion tour... and I knew every song in the playlist.  Most of the time, I could even recall big chunks of the lyrics.  That's how much the band has seeped into the collective unconscious, in largest part due to Eddie's incendiary and original guitar work.  Yet as many have noted and will note, for all of his talent and technique, EVH also exuded a sense of just plain fun that rivaled his frontman, David Lee Roth.  In the years since that reunion show, I came around to the take that VH was Generation X's answer to the Beach Boys: the tension between the musical genius and the doofus lyricist, the harmonies, the celebration of the California lifestyle -- it's all there (and making it obvious why DLR later had a solo hit covering "California Girls."  BONUS: This Louder piece from 2015 focusing on Van Halen's signing and debut is quite good. DOUBLE BONUS: Chuck Klosterman's ranking of VH songs will link you up to most anything you want, though I'd pick "Beautiful Girls" as one of my favorites and an example of my Beach Boys hypothesis.  TRIPLE BONUS: A nugget about EVH's unpaid cameo on Michael Jackson's "Beat It."  QUADRUPLE BONUS: VH's "Hot For Teacher" popped up during those (in)famous US Senate hearings on rock lyrics.

JOHNNY NASH, an American reggae and pop music singer-songwriter, best known in the US for the 1972 hit, “I Can See Clearly Now,” died Tuesday at his home. He was 80.

I think that's enough for today. More tomorrow, barring the unforeseen.

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