"Have 'Twangy' Guitar Will Travel," by Duane Eddy (June, 1959)

Dad's Take:

As a surf guitar fan, I can't ignore Duane Eddy's influence on one of my favorite genres. The reverb-drenched twangy instrumental tunes of Duane Eddy helped give birth to that genre a year or so after this album came out. Duane Eddy's combo, featuring Eddy on guitar, a sax, bass, and drum, became the model for surf bands.

But one thing should be made clear: this is not surf music. Eddy created a kind of fusion of rock and roll, jazz, country, and even a touch of exotica (without the sound effects). "Rebel Rouser" is one of the true classics of instrumental rock and roll. It's probably the best known song on this collection, but it is definitely not the only one worth listening to. "The Lonely One" is also well-known, "Ramrod" is as energetic as any future surf tune, and even the lesser-known songs are good. I didn't find a single clunker on this record. This is what the Chet Atkins album we listened to earlier could have been if Atkins used a band and had a little more energy.

This is good stuff. Duane Eddy is too often overlooked in the lists of musical pioneers of the 1950s and early 1960s. Go out and pick this up, or some other Duane Eddy collection, You won't hear the pyrotechnics of a Jimi Hendrix or the speed of a Dick Dale, but neither of them would have been what they were without Duane Eddy being there first.

Brad's Take:


Strangely, I'd never heard of Duane Eddy until now. Doing a quick Wikipedia search on the guy, I learned a couple of pretty interesting things:

1. He was the first rock n' roll musician to have his own signature guitar model. So many musicians still do this today so it's pretty cool to me that he was actually the first.

2. Four of the songs from this album were on the Top 100 Billboard chart. This is interesting to me because you don't see any instrumental tracks getting their way onto the Top 100 anymore, let alone one ("Rebel-Rouser") getting into the Top 10.

2. Duane Eddy's song "Moovin' N' Groovin" has a guitar riff that The Beach Boys "borrowed" for their song "Surfin' USA." Those of you who know my dad probably know that he's borderline obsessed with The Beach Boys so I have grown to know "Surfin' USA" pretty damn well. I was quite surprised to learn that the song's opening riff was indeed pretty similar to Duane Eddy's song.... I can't believe my own father would subject his children to such blatant plagiarism! ...That was actually internet sarcasm. E-sarcasm, if you will. The songs' riffs really don't sound that alike, but you can tell that Brian Wilson and the gang were tipping their hats to Mr. Eddy.

Duane's guitar playing is tasteful. He doesn't show off with crazy fast guitar solos. He stays true to the mood of the song and doesn't always overshadow the other instruments involved. But with that said, you can tell that Duane Eddy has some true talent and skill on the guitar.

I liked this album. It is a cool combination of 50's blues-inspired rock n' roll instrumentals with echo-ey surf guitar thrown into the mix. There's even some country tinged tunes on this album. 

Finger-Style Guitar, by Chet Atkins (September 1956)

Dad's Take:

Chet Atkins was an innovator of country-style guitar playing, they tell me. And it may have been true. I don't know enough about that genre prior to this album to be able to comment on that.

All I know is, innovator or not, every song on this album makes me think of roller rink music or the samples for guitar lessons. There is some good picking here, but every song is played at the same roller skating tempo. Whether it's an upbeat number like "Gavotte in D" or a gentle ballad like "Unchained Melody," nearly every song is played at pretty much the same tempo, a tempo that reminds me of what you might hear when you walk into a chapel.. It doesn't help that there are no gaps between tracks. (You wouldn't, after all, want gaps of silence in your skating rink.) When songs are played pretty much the same and run together, there's no avoiding monotony. Occasionally, there's a song that promises a little more excitement, like "Malaguena," but by the end, even those songs drop back into the all-too-familiar tempo.

I'm going to have to leave it to my guitarist son to comment on the technical virtuosity of Atkins's playing. Truth is, whether this album is really innovative, and whether it is an influential disc, it's not something I find particularly entertaining. I'm afraid this is a one-time listen for me.

Brad's Take:

When I first started guitar lessons way back in the day, my teacher mostly taught me acoustic finger picking techniques. At the time, I hated it. I just wanted to play rock music. In the last few years though, I've opened my mind a bit more and I wish I had paid more attention and practiced more often during that first year of guitar lessons. I would love to be able to finger pick like Chet Atkins.

Fun fact: This album was recorded in only one day, which is pretty impressive. Then again, it's only a guy and his guitar, for the most part. If you're good enough (which he obviously is) then it shouldn't take very long to record a whole album in one day. I wonder how many takes each song took though.

There's no doubt that this guy is incredibly talented. The album went by really fast for me. I enjoyed it a lot. As my old man said, the tempo to each song is pretty much the same, at least in the first half of the album. The songs remind my dad of roller skating, but they remind me of the ending credits to Spongebob Squarepants. We definitely grew up in different eras.