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...

It's the list of the 50 Worst Rock Songs Ever — and it surely must be authoritative, because it comes from Blender magazine! You know, BLENDER? So I'm not the only one who doesn't read it. Good. Anyway, Blender names the worst rock hit in human history. It's "We Built This City (on Rock 'n Roll)" by Starship. Good choice. To assert that one can build a city on rock 'n' roll is simply bad urban theory. It is safe to say that rock 'n' roll provides an insufficient means of providing the infrastructure necessary for a large urban environment....

June 29, 2003 LIZ PHAIR Chicken Little's Tale To the Editor: Re "Liz Phair's Exile in Avril-ville" by Meghan O'Rourke [June 22]: Once upon a time there was a writer named Chicken Little. Chicken Little worked very hard and took her job very seriously. Often, she even wrote. One day, just as Chicken Little was about to have an idea, she heard something falling on her roof. "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" she shrieked, spilling green tea and vodka all over her work station. This commotion awoke her three readers, who lived with her in her hut,...