Eddie Van Halen, the Pasadena kid who ruled the late ’70s and ’80s as the era’s premier guitar god, was that rare musician whose signature style and sound you knew the instant you heard it.
And like a rock ‘n’ roll god, Van Halen, who died on Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 65, and his music won’t ever really die, not as long as the work he unleashed on stage and in the studio lives on.
Most of his greatest works were made with Van Halen, the hard rock band he and his drummer brother Alex Van Halen formed in the early ’70s with flamboyant frontman David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony.
Over a dozen studio albums and two live ones, Van Halen regularly left fans and fellow musicians agape at the talent and creativity that made him one of the greatest guitarists of all-time, the equal of his own idols, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, and a lasting influence on scores of hard rock guitarists who followed his fingers up and down the frets.
Listen, for example, to “Eruption,” a solo instrumental on the band’s 1978 self-titled debut. It’s only 1 minute and 42 seconds long, and serves almost as the bridge between “Runnin’ With The Devil” and the Kinks’ cover “You Really Got Me.” But this classic concerto was more than enough time for Van Halen to throw down a challenge to every other guitarist on the planet through its chunky riffs and finger-tapping arpeggios, the latter a technique he largely invented.
Get a room of guitar and/or music geeks together and Eddie Van Halen inevitably ends up at or near the top of debates over the greatest guitarist of all-time, somewhere in the neighborhood of legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Page of Led Zeppelin and Brian May of Queen.
Like that elite company, Van Halen’s work could impress both professional peers with his technical proficiency while thrilling the fans who packed arenas in the early ’80s to cheer for the visceral pleasures of hard-rocking riffs and solos on catchy tunes such as “Panama,” “Hot For Teacher” and “Jump.”
A once-in-a-generation talent, Van Halen’s playing transcended the goofy videos that accompanied the monster hits off “1984,” the album that made the band the biggest in the world and inspired air guitar heroes ever after.
Perhaps more impressively, Van Halen’s guitar virtuosity rose above the din of the lead singer drama with the comings and goings of David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar on a couple of spins, plus Gary Cherone from Extreme.
Van Halen’s notable musical contributions extended beyond the guitar. Classically trained in the piano, the guitarist was responsible for the iconic synthesizer riff on “Jump,” and the crossover of the typical pop instrument into the land of head-banging hard rock. He also wrote and played the piano on the band’s 1991 hit “Right Now.”
By the time Roth left the band in 1985, ending its first decade of superstardom, Eddie Van Helen had transcended the arena stage to take on a role in the pop culture at large, his name a reference point for teenage boys cruising across film screens in the years that followed.
At the end of the 1982 teen comedy “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” as viewers find out what happened to the film’s characters later in life, it was revealed that surfer stoner Jeff Spicoli, played by Sean Penn, saved Brooke Shields from drowning. He blows his reward money “hiring Van Halen to play at his birthday party.”
In “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” the 1989 time-travel comedy starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, the hapless wanna-be rock stars make multiple references to Eddie Van Halen.
Director Richard Linklater not only named his 2016 film “Everybody Wants Some!!” after the Van Halen song of the same name, he also included the band’s “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” on the soundtrack a musical cue to its setting in 1980.
As a performer, Van Halen usually played with a big grin on his face as he unleashed iconic riffs, many of them created on a “Frankenstrat,” the custom guitars Van Halen built to have a Fender Stratocaster-style body paired with the heavier sound of a Gibson. It’s such a big deal that he donated a copy to the Smithsonian, another place where Van Halen’s contributions continue to rock on.