Free Republic

Duane Eddy, the twangy, Grammy-winning rock guitarist who had Top 10 instrumental hits including “Rebel Rouser” and “Forty Miles of Bad Road” and scored with a version of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn,” died Wednesday of cancer at a hospital in Franklin, TN, his wife Deed Abbate told The Associated Press. He had turned 86 last week. Eddy, who influenced generations of guitar legends including George Harrison, John Fogerty, Bruce Springsteen, Ritchie Blackmore, Mark Knopfler and The Ventures’ Don Wilson, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Born on April 26, 1938, in Corning, NY, Eddy...

When guitarist/producer Ry Cooder returned to Cuba in 2001, he looked up Manuel Galban, a guitarist he calls "the last twanging man in Cuba." Mr. Galban, perhaps the island's greatest guitar player, is also something of an anomaly. He mastered the solid-body electric guitar in the 1950s, a time when few electric guitars were being imported from the U.S. And his musical sensibilities were nurtured during an era when Havana enthusiastically absorbed such distinctly American influences as doo-wop -- a trend that ended abruptly when Fidel Castro took power in 1959. Mr. Cooder enjoyed the biggest success of his career...