Eddie Van Halen facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Eddie Van Halen
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Eddie Van Halen in 2015
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Edward Lodewijk van Halen |
| Born | January 26, 1955 Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands |
| Died | October 6, 2020 (aged 65) Santa Monica, California, United States |
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| Years active | 1972–2020 |
| Musical career | |
| Origin | Pasadena, California, U.S. |
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| Instruments | Guitar |
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| Spouse(s) |
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| Children | Wolfgang Van Halen |
| Parents |
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| Relatives | Alex Van Halen (brother) |
Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halen (January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020) was a Dutch-born American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer. He is most famous as the guitarist and co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen. He is listed as number 70 in Rolling Stone Magazine's "Top 100 Guitarists of All Time" issue.
In 2007 Eddie Van Halen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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Early life
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was born in Amsterdam on January 26, 1955, the son of Jan van Halen and Eugenia (née van Beers). His father was a Dutch jazz pianist, clarinettist, and saxophonist, while his mother was an Indo (Eurasian) woman from Rangkasbitung on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). The family eventually settled in Nijmegen, Netherlands.
After experiencing mistreatment for their mixed-race relationship in the 1950s, the parents moved the family to the U.S. in 1962. They settled near other family members in Pasadena, California, where Eddie and his brother Alex attended a segregated elementary school. Since the boys did not speak English as a first language, they were considered "minority" students and experienced bullying by white students. They began learning the piano at age six, commuting from Pasadena to San Pedro, Los Angeles, to study with an elderly piano teacher, Stasys Kalvaitis.
Van Halen was never taught to read music; instead, he watched recitals of Bach or Mozart repertoire and improvised. Between 1964 and 1967, he won first place in the annual piano competition at Long Beach City College. His parents wanted the boys to be classical pianists, but Van Halen gravitated towards rock music, and was greatly influenced by 1960s British Invasion bands like the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five. In an ironic twist of fate, Eddie's brother Alex Van Halen started taking guitar lessons and Eddie bought a drum kit. While Eddie was delivering newspapers to pay for his drum kit, Alex would play it. They soon switched instruments permanently.
Eddie and Alex formed their first band with three other boys, called themselves The Broken Combs, and performed at lunchtime at Hamilton Elementary School in Pasadena when he was in the fourth grade. He later cited this performance as key to his desire to become a professional musician.
Career
In 1974 the brothers along with David Lee Roth and Michael Anthony became known as Van Halen. They were signed to Warner Brothers in 1977 and released their self titled debut album on February 8, 1978. Multiplatinum sales and world tours followed. Van Halen's unusual and unique techniques influenced a generation of guitarists. His motto was "if it sounds good, play it", and his graceful melodies soon propelled him to guitar god status.
The band's 1978 album Van Halen reached #19 on the Billboard pop music charts and was one of rock's most commercially successful debuts, highly regarded as both a heavy metal and hard rock album. By the early 1980s, Van Halen was one of the most successful rock acts of the time.
The band won the 1992 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocals for the album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. In 2019, the band ranked 20th on the RIAA list of best-selling artists, with 56 million album sales in the United States and more than 100 million worldwide.
Other work
Van Halen also played an important role in getting R&B videos played on then rock-dominated MTV.
He was called in to lay down a guitar track for the song Beat It from Michael Jackson's breakthrough 1982 album, "Thriller". The combination of Quincy Jones' production and Eddie's guitar work broke new ground, and created a new musical trend.
Van Halen has done soundtrack work for movies such as Back To The Future and Wild Life, and has recorded with Brian May, Jeff Pocaro, and Thomas Dolby. He built his trademark red and white striped guitar (originally black and white) by hand, using an imperfect body and neck picked up at a discount. He created and promoted a new signature guitar made by Peavey Guitars in the 1990s.
Personal life
In 1980, Van Halen met actress Valerie Bertinelli at a Van Halen concert in Shreveport, Louisiana. They married in California eight months later on April 11, 1981, and had one son, Wolfgang, in 1991. In 2005, Bertinelli filed for divorce in Los Angeles after four years of separation. The divorce was finalized in 2007.
The following year, Eddie proposed to his girlfriend, Janie Liszewski, an actress and stuntwoman who was Van Halen's publicist at the time. The two married in 2009 at his Studio City estate, with his son Wolfgang and ex-wife Bertinelli in attendance. His brother Alex Van Halen is an ordained minister, and he officiated Eddie's 2009 wedding and that of his former sister-in-law, Valerie Bertinelli, when she remarried in 2011.
Death
Van Halen died on October 6, 2020 from throat cancer at the age of 65.
Legacy
In February 2017, Van Halen donated 75 guitars from his personal collection to The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, a program that provides musical instruments to students in low-income schools.
Discography
Solo discography
- "Donut City" for The Wild Life (1984)
- "Respect the Wind" for Twister (1996)
Images for kids
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Van Halen's "Frankenstrat"
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Van Halen using the tapping technique
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Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli at the 1993 Emmy Awards
See also
In Spanish: Eddie Van Halen para niños
