MR. BIG's BILLY SHEEHAN Reveals The Guitarist Who Inspired Him To Hammer-On... And It's Not EDDIE VAN HALEN

Although there had been several guitarists who touched upon some form of two-handed tapping prior to 1978 - Steve Hackett, Ace Frehley, Brian May... heck, even a bloke named Vittorio Camardese - it was not until Eddie Van Halen came along that it truly became part of the rock guitar lexicon, reports Greg Prato for Ultimate-Guitar.com.

But one of the first - quite possibly the first - bassists to employ two-handed tapping (aka hammer-ons) into their style was Billy Sheehan. And while many assume it was EVH that inspired Sheehan to tap, during a recent interview with Matt Pinfield on 95.5 KLOS/New & Improved, the bass great explained it was not who many think (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar).

"On New Year's Eve, Alice Cooper with ZZ Top opening up - I think it was 1974 - I saw Billy Gibbons go [mimics a hammer-on on his bass]. He hit a note with this hand. It's common every day now. Everybody knows about it. It was the first time I ever saw it - somebody hit a note… a hammer-on. So, I got hammer-ons from Billy Gibbons. I went home, and I started doing it as a little bass player, a little kid in Buffalo, New York."

Read more at Ultimate-Guitar.com. and check out Sheehan's interview with Matt Pinfield, below: