For millions of people around the world, weekends will feel a little less lively without Eddie Van Halen, who died of cancer this week at age 65. The Journal’s Anne Steele writes that his life “epitomized both the aspirational American dream and the rough-and-tumble of rock ’n’ roll.” She adds:A self-taught musician, Mr. Van Halen popularized the two-handed tapping technique of playing with both hands on the neck of the guitar. With his brother he formed the basis of Van Halen, the band that made hard rock’s comeback in the 1980s. Ms. Rothbard recounted an interview with the rocker at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington. He shared a Dutch phrase of his father’s that translates into, “Just keep pedaling.”The end result, as Kory Grow notes in Rolling Stone, was that Van Halen “helped make heavy metal fun”:

Source: Wall Street Journal October 08, 2020 18:56 UTC