“The only gear I brought was a red Hamer prototype. That guitar is magical. I used it on Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love, David Lee Roth’s California Girls and with Mick Jagger”: Eddie Martinez explains how he helped Run-D.M.C. bring rock to hip hop

(Left) Run D.M.C. posing in Adidas tracksuits in front of the Empire State building in New York and (right) Eddie Martinez holding his red Hamer guitar in a 1986 portrait.

Before hooking up with Run-D.M.C., New York City session veteran Eddie Martinez had made his rounds with Blondie, Robert Palmer, Mick Jagger and David Lee Roth (and let’s not forget his contributions to Run-D.M.C.’s self-titled 1984 debut). Still, he says that lending his licks to a hip-hop album, which became King of Rock, was a different animal.

“Big ‘rock’ guitar wasn’t associated with rap prior to me playing on Rock Box and King of Rock,” Martinez says. “But Larry Smith, who wrote and produced those classics, knew I could get the sounds and vibe because I’d played in rock and punk bands when we were kids.”