Today we celebrate the rock God that is Edward Van Halen!
Born on January 26, 1955, Edward did more than just help revolutionize the rock guitar, he dramatically changed the way rock music looked and sounded on a scale that few ever did before him.
Together, with his brother Alex, he would create the band Mammoth, which would eventually become Van Halen, after David Lee Roth joined. Together they blazed a trail out of the 70’s and into the 80’s, breaking the door open for the LA hair metal explosion that followed. So massive was their impact, that they were the lone band of that genre not hated by the heavier forms of metal, as all the other groups were frowned upon as being watered down copies.
Van Halen’s success continued on throughout the 90’s and into the 2000’s as the band would later resurge when reunited with Roth after his exit from the band in the mid 80’s, and through that time his legacy was cemented by the countless guitarists that clamed their influence by him, and whose style emulated his. Edward is widely regarded as one of the most important guitarists in rock history, as his revolutionizing of the tapping guitar technique, reinvented how arpeggios could be played with two hands on the fretboard. Van Halen was voted number one in a Guitar World Magazine poll for "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time", and Rolling Stone magazine him 4th in their list of the "250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
He is the template by which pretty much all technical guitarists live by and his influence is one that will continue to be felt for all time.