Eddie Van Halen, one of the best guitarists in rock history, dies at 65 | Music

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According to sources on the TMZ website, the musician was admitted to St. John’s Hospital in the city of Santa Monica, United States. He was accompanied by his wife Janie, his son Wolfgang and Alex, his brother and drummer of the band.

“I can’t believe I have to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning. He was the best father I could have asked for,” wrote guitarist Wolfgang Van’s son. Halen, on your social networks.

“Every moment I shared with him on stage and off was a gift. My heart is broken and I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from that loss. I love you so much, Dad.”

TMZ says Eddie’s situation has worsened in the past 72 hours, when doctors discovered that his throat cancer had spread to his brain and other organs.

Eddie Van Halen was one of the greatest rock guitarists in history and founded in 1972 with his brother Alex, the band baptized two years later with his surname.

Van Halen was one of the most influential bands in hard rock and heavy metal. The striking style of the band marked the culture of the 1980s.

Eddie’s virtuoso riffs and solos have become a rock reference. One of the most striking was in “Eruption”, in which he helped popularize “tapping”, a technique in which both hands are used on the guitar neck.

He was born in Amsterdam, Holland, but as a child he moved with his family to California, USA.

In the second half of the 1970s, Van Halen began to stand out on the Los Angeles rock scene. They released their debut album in 1978.

The peak of the band came with the album “1984”, which that year earned a Grammy nomination and led to the single “Jump” to be the band’s first and only number one on the US charts.

Among the various other events of Van Halen is “Dance the Night Away” (1979), “Panama” (1984), “Why Can’t This Be Love” (1986), “When It’s Love” (1988), “Right now “(1992) and” Can’t Stop Lovin ‘You “(1995).

The band’s most recent unreleased album had been 2012’s “A Different Kind of Trith,” the twelfth of the group’s career, which reached number two on the Billboard charts.

In 2012, Eddie won first place in a “Guitar World” magazine readership poll for the best guitarist of all time.

He became famous playing the guitar in front of Van Halen, but has several appearances with other artists. The best known is in “Beat it”, one of Michael Jackson’s biggest hits.

His other notable side projects include two from 2009: he played two tracks on rapper LL Cool J’s album “Authentic,” and he also made a cameo on the series “Two and a Half Men.”

Gene Simmons, the lead singer and one of the founders of Kiss, mourned the loss. “My heart is broken. Eddie was not just a super guitarist, but a genuinely beautiful soul. Rest in peace Eddie!” He wrote on his Twitter profile.