Eddie Van Halen, guitar god in rock band named after him, dies at 65

By Dan Whitcomb

 

FILE PHOTO: Guitarist Eddie Van Halen performs during a private Valen Halen show to announce the band's upcoming tour at Cafe Wha? in New York January 5, 2012. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

 

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Eddie Van Halen, one of rock music's greatest guitar players and a founding member of the hard-rocking, top-selling band named after him and his drummer brother, died of cancer on Tuesday. He was 65.

 

Van Halen's death was announced on Twitter by his 29-year-old son, Wolfgang, himself a bass player who joined the band in later years. Representatives for Eddie Van Halen directed Reuters to his son's statement.

 

"I can't believe I'm having to write this but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning," Wolfgang Van Halen said in the tweet.

 

"He was the best father I could ever ask for," the younger Van Halen said. "Every moment I've shared with him on and off stage was a gift."

 

Actress Valerie Bertinelli, Eddie Van Halen's former wife of 26 years and Wolfgang's mother, retweeted the Twitter statement by her son.

 

"My heart is broken. Eddie was not only a Guitar God, but a genuinely beautiful soul," Gene Simmons, lead singer of the band Kiss, said on Twitter.

 

Eddie Van Halen was born in Amsterdam in 1955 and studied classical piano after moving with his family to the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena in the early 1960s.

 

After switching to guitar, he and his older brother Alex, who had taken up the drums, formed the early bands that would eventually become Van Halen in the 1970s, with lead singer David Lee Roth and bass player Michael Anthony.

 

The hard rock band, featuring Eddie Van Halen's explosive guitar solos, quickly became a staple of the famed Sunset Strip music scene in Los Angeles before releasing their eponymous debut album in 1978.

 

That album shot to No. 19 on the Billboard charts, becoming one of the most successful debuts of the decade.

 

It was the first in a string of top-selling albums that would make Van Halen one of the biggest rock acts of the late 1970s and early 1980s with hits like "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love," "Jump," "Panama" and "Hot for Teacher."

 

Eddie Van Halen's pioneering, virtuoso technique earned him a place along the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin as one of rock's top guitarists. In 2012 a Guitar World magazine poll of readers voted him the greatest guitar player of all time.

 

Roth split from the band in 1984 and was replaced for a decade by Sammy Hagar.

 

"Heartbroken and speechless. My love to the family," Hagar said in a tweet.

 

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Mimi Dwyer, Lisa Richwine, Steve Gorman and Jill Serjeant; Editing by Leslie Adler, Aurora Ellis and Lisa Shumaker)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-10-07

 

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Died by cancer from smoking.

 

 

1 hour ago, webfact said:

In 2012 a Guitar World magazine poll of readers voted him the greatest guitar player of all time.

No matter what form of Sport, Science, Art or Entertainment that you enjoy, there will always be a few special individuals who excel well above the highest curve of excellence.  

Eddie Van Halen was highly revered as such and left an indelible mark on the world of music and entertainment …..R.I.P

 

I loved VH and saw Eddie play once in concert.  What a show and what a guitarist. He will be missed by rock fans around the world.

Glasgow Apollo - caught him there twice in the 80's.

What a guitarist, what a band. ERUPTION!!!

Very influential in my younger days, what a loss, RIP VH!

Yes, sad news indeed. Condolences to his family.

First time I heard "Eruption" was in the upper parking lot of my high school in the fall of 1979 played out of some stoner guy's beefy car stereo. Then saw them the following year in the Seattle Coliseum accompanied by a bag of weed. 65 is too young, RIP Eddie. 

Edited October 7, 20205 yr by Captain_Bob

Wow!  What can you say?  RIP Eddie Van Halen.

I saw them support Black Sabbath at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1978 (?) and Van Halen blew them off the stage.

 

Lucky to see them later with Sammy Hagar on an Easter Sunday at the Forum in Copenhagen in the mid 90s.

 

A really great guitarist and his live performances are remembered fondly!

 

I wish people in their 60's would stop dying.....it's making me nervous.

Very sad news

one of the best guitar heroes is gone

RIP

   

 

Seen V H at Monsters of Rock Donington about 1984 ( long time ago now ) before D L R exited and they were top class .. absolutely brilliant .. very sad Eddie has gone but his spirit will live on in the music ..

Another one of the greats sadly gone but his music lives on forever.????????????

Tons of great guitarists throughout the ages, but always said if was forced to choose only one...

...it would be Eddie. Always played with such ease and joy. Was fortunate to see VH live. ????

Added to the list of great departed still grieving for Gay Moore Rip Eddie ???? 

 

RIP

Sitting in a taxi stuck in traffic Van Halens song jump came on.

Best memory of being in a taxi.

So many great guitarists, musicians, actors and actresses, and other entertainers

dying. I am sorry that Eddy did not get to enjoy many years as a senior, RIP, Eddy, you

will be missed.

Geezer

I saw the VDO for Jump. They were having a ball. It's great that they didn't take themselves seriously. RIP.

I was a Van Halen fan going back to my high school days.  I still believe their first album was among the best metal albums ever. 

 

I didn't realize that Eddie and his brother are half Indonesian....and that they suffered brutal racism in their early years in America.  Strange I'd never heard much about this until now.  Or maybe I never really followed their personal stories much. 

 

[He told Quan that the school he attended at the time was still segregated and that because he couldn't speak the language, he was considered a "minority" student.]

["My first friends in America were Black," Eddie told the journalist. "It was actually the white people that were the bullies. They would tear up my homework and papers, make me eat playground sand, all those things, and the Black kids stuck up for me."]

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/eddie-van-halen-endured-horrifying-racist-environment-becoming-rock-legend-n1242663