TTT - A tribute to Eddie Van Halen who we lost in 2020

Its tuesday, so its time to share some more music !

I've always been a big Eddie Van Halen fan, and am still saddened by his loss in 2020 (aged 65 - too young). I've been listening to some of his music of late, and thought I'd focus on some of his tunes for #ttt this week.

Top Jimmy is from the album 1984, which makes that album 40 years old (really ?). Van Halen's most famous song, Jump, was the second track on that album. As ever, his playing on this track is pretty darn impressive. The original line-up of Van Halen split after the 1984 album with David Lee Roth leaving to pursue a fairly successful solo career.

Next up is Little Guitars from their 1982 album Diver Down. The video actually has the intro and the song, which were actually separate tracks on the album. This album was actually the start of the split of the band from David Lee Roth. The rest of the band didnt like the fact that he was pushing for non-Van Halen songs to go on the album, which included a great cover of Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman, along with a few other odd ball songs (happy Trails & Big Bad Bill is Sweet William now) for a Van Halen album. Interestingly, the song Big Bad William included 3 Van Halen family members - Eddie, Alex (Eddie's brother and Van Halen drummer) and Jan Van Halen (Eddie and Alex's dad) who played clarinet on that track - a fairly talented family.

The third tune for tonight is a live version of Running with the Devil. The song is from their 1978 debut album, named Van Halen. This live version is from 2015, 5 years before his death, and also includes 3 Van Halens again - Eddie, Alex on drums and Eddie's son wolfgang on bass (he was a full time band member after Mike Anthony moved on). David Lee Roth was also back in the band at this point. Eddie's playing on this is faultless (petty about Dave's vocal which are a bit pitchy in places !). It really shows just how good a guitar player he is as this tune is quite technical in places, and he is playing it effortlessly live. It was also a tune that was quite ahead of its time when it came out in 1978, leading the way for the 80s heavy rock sound.

And I thought I'd add a short fourth tune. This is the first track from the 1984 album, and is the song called 1984, which lead into Jump which was track two. Eddie wasnt just a guitar player, he was also a heck of a synth player too. I'm sure I remember reading an interview in a guitar magazine in the 80s or 90s where he said he was just playing around with a synthesiser and when their manager or producer heard it he thought it was good enough to go on the album, and so it did - hence it wasnt planned as such. I really love this piece of music, and used to wake up to it each morning back in the days when I had a CD alarm clock. Its quite a gentle piece of music to wake up too, and I think its a habit I'm going to have to reinstate.

Anyway, that wraps up my #threetunetuesday post for this week. I'm still loving his music, and cant believe we wont hear anything new from him going forward. RIP - gone but not forgotten.