Another rock pioneer has played off the stage, with the death of twang guitar star Duane Eddy. He was best known for two instrumentals - Rebel Rouser and the Theme From Peter Gunn, both from 1958. Though he was a rock original back when the music was still young, he was a modest man who knew where his legacy lay. 

"With his raucous rhythms, and backing hollers and hand claps, Eddy sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and mastered a distinctive sound based on the premise that a guitar’s bass strings sounded better on tape than the high ones.

“I had a distinctive sound that people could recognize and I stuck pretty much with that. I’m not one of the best technical players by any means; I just sell the best,” he told The Associated Press in a 1986 interview. “A lot of guys are more skillful than I am with the guitar. A lot of it is over my head. But some of it is not what I want to hear out of the guitar.”

You gotta love the fact that he turned down the chance to record some James Bond movie songs because there wasn't enough guitar music in them. 

Cancer got him at age 86.

Duane Eddy, twangy guitar hero of early rock, dead at age 86