Abbott was shot and killed by a gunman while on stage during a performance with Damageplan on December 8, 2004. He ranked No. 92 in Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists and No. 1 in Metal Hammer. In 2012, he was ranked the ninth-greatest guitarist of all time by a Guitar World reader\'s poll.\n', '

Abbott was born in Arlington, Texas on August 20, 1966, the son to Carolyn and Jerry Abbott, a country musician and producer. He took up the guitar when he was twelve, with his first being a Les Paul-style Hondo along with a small amplifier that he received on his twelfth birthday. At age 14, Abbott entered a cassette tape of his playing into a Dallas-area guitar contest. His tape was selected, from over 150 entries, to be in the top 15. Each finalist was invited to the Agora Ballroom in Dallas to play for the grand prize, a new Dean ML. Abbott\'s mother had to accompany him to the club because he was not old enough to get in. A quiet, almost shy Darrell easily won the event. Months later, when the contest ran again, Darrell entered and won that contest also, causing the contest sponsors to ask him not to enter the next time so someone else could win. He then sold the Dean ML guitar to luthier Buddy Blaze, who installed a Floyd Rose bridge and emblazoned it with Abbott\'s signature lightning bolt paint job; Blaze returned it some years later. Coincidentally, his father had also bought him a Dean ML the morning before the first competition, but it had a cherry sunburst finish instead. Abbott met his long-time girlfriend Rita Haney at a young age, when he was in third grade.\n', '

Abbott formed Pantera in 1981 with his brother Vinnie Paul on drums. Upon forming, Abbott came up with the alias \'Diamond Darrell\'. The band was influenced by thrash metal acts such as Slayer, Megadeth, Venom, and Metallica as well as traditional metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Motörhead, and Judas Priest. With Rex Brown on bass and Terry Glaze on vocals, Pantera released three albums, Metal Magic (1983), Projects in the Jungle (1984), and I Am the Night (1985).\n', '

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