If there is one thing that can get me Hiving again .... it is the loss of another music legend. Legend, an often overused adjective ... but nobody in my generation would disagree with me that Eddie Van Halen earned that title .....
Born Edward Lodewijk Van Halen in Amsterdam, Netherlands Eddie and his family emigrated to The States when he was seven years old. From the age of 9 through to 12 Eddie won classical piano competitions and his parents wanted him and his brother to be classical pianists. The brothers had other ideas.
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Eddie and his brother Alex formed the band Van Halen in around 1974, recording demo's only got started in 1976. Their first album simply titled "Van Halen" sold more than 10 million copies in the US of A .... certified diamond...and here starts out first track.
You Really Got Me Now A cover of the Kinks number was their debut single.
Running With the Devil from the debut album Van Halen
AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine described Van Halen as "monumental" and "seismic", while noting that it is typically not viewed as an "epochal generation shift" in the same way as the debut albums of Led Zeppelin, the Ramones, The Rolling Stones, and the Sex Pistols.[30] He explains, "The reason it's never given the same due is that there's no pretension, nothing self-conscious about it."[30] He commented: "The still-amazing thing about Van Halen is how it sounds like it has no fathers ... Like all great originals Van Halen doesn't seem to belong to the past and it still sounds like little else, despite generations of copycats."[30] In Erlewine's opinion, the album "set the template for how rock and roll sounded for the next decade or more."[30] A retrospective review by Q noted, "Hit singles came later, but this dazzling debut remains their trump card."[19]
In 1994, Van Halen was ranked number eight in Colin Larkin's Top 50 Heavy Metal Albums. Larkin described it as "one of the truly great" debut albums of heavy metal.
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In my generation most people focused on David Lee Roth as the frontman, but to my mind Eddie Van Halens guitar mastery was what set them on the road to fame and success.
Jump - probably one of their most recognised numbers
Not one of the biggest hits but one of my favorites .... great memories...and just listen to that guitar riff...
Jamies Crying
Thank you for the music Eddie .... may you enjoy a jamming session with Jimi, Duane Allman and let Jim Morrison do vocal in music heaven