August 20, 1966
December 8, 2004
I miss and love you dime. Your music has always been an inspiration to me since I was little. The world is a bit duller without you.
I'm going to post a story that I like to mention every year about Dime.
When it came to his fans, Dimebag was always glad to lend a hand.
Dimebag Darrell always treated his fans well because he was a fan himself. As his brother Vinnie put it, "Dime had a heart as big as Texas" and his admirers, more often than not, were the recipients of his generosity.
I recall one account of Dimebag's kindness, told to me in the mid Nineties shortly after Far Beyond Driven had come out, by the owner of a music store.
"I was there to perform a clinic for Marshall Amplification, just a few days after Dime had given an in-store autograph session at the shop. Among the hundreds of people at Dime's apperance, was a boy in his early teens who attended with his dad. As Dimebag obligingly autographed the kids CDs, posters and photo's, the boy told Darrell he was the reason he wanted to play guitar.
"Cool!" said Dime, "What sort of Ax do you have?"
The boy replied that he didn't have a guitar yet, but his dad was saving up to buy him one for Christmas. Noting that it was the middle of the summer, Dime joked with the father: "C'mon, dad! You can't leave your boy hangin'. How about an early Christmas this year?"
The father then quietly explained that he recently lost his job and was putting away whatever he could for the gift.
After posing for photo's with the boy and his father, Dime casually beckoned a store manager and, whispering in his ear, told him to ask the boy and his father to hang out until after the event because Dime has a special picture he wanted to sign for them.
After the public has left, Dimebag asked the manager to pick out the best starter electric guitar in the store because he'd like to buy it. Dime then took the boy and his father back to the manager's office, away from the staff, and presented the guitar to them.
"Merry Christmas!" he told the boy.
"Start practicing now, because next time i roll through town, we're jamming!"
It was like Dime not to make a show of his generosity or call attention to what might have been an embarrassing plight for the father.
A few weeks after the clinic, I saw Diembag and asked him about the incident, he shrugged.
"The kid and his dad were way cool, so I just had to help 'em out. It didn't cost me much, and hell, who knows? He could wind up being the next Eddie Van Halen.
"Typical Dime". God bless him.
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