Darrell Lance Abbott — Dimebag Darrell, the most influential metal guitarist of his generation — was born on August 20, 1966 in Ennis, Texas. Entirely self-taught, he co-founded PANTERA with his brother Vinnie Paul in 1981, performing as Diamond Darrell through the band's early glam years before the arrival of Phil Anselmo and the scorched-earth reinvention of Cowboys from Hell. What followed rewired heavy metal: Far Beyond Driven debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in 1994, still the heaviest album ever to do so. His style leaned on the major third, aggressive legato phrasing and squealing artificial harmonics rather than textbook scales, and it became the vocabulary of an entire genre. He was murdered on stage in Columbus, Ohio on December 8, 2004, while performing with DAMAGEPLAN, aged 38. VH1 later named him the most influential metal guitarist of the past twenty-five years.
