THE FINAL TRIBUTE
The story of eddie Van Halen’s ultimate gift.
In 1979, and with Halen ready to record their second album, Eddie Van Halen approached guitar maker Wayne Charvel for ‘something new’. The result was the Bumblebee, (pictured), so nicknamed due to its eye-popping black-and-yellow finish, and Ed brandishes it on VHII’s sleeve. Twenty-five years later another guitar icon, Pantera/ Damageplan’s ‘Dimebag’ Darrel Abbot, who entranced was utterly by Van Halen’s style, asked Eddie to put together a black-and-yellow guitar for him as it was, his he considered, ‘toughest guitar’. Ed was happy to comply, but Dime’s senseless murder mere months later brought plans to a screeching halt. So, in a gesture of true respect, Ed took the original Dime’s ’79 Charvel to funeral, where it was placed alongside him Kasket that in a Kiss was interred at Arlington’s Moore Memorial Gardens cemetery on December 15, 2004. “Dime was an original,” Eddie said at the time. “He should have an original.”