This week in Texas music history: Dimebag Darrell is born in Grand Prairie

On Aug. 20, 1966, metal legend Darrell Lance Abbott, better known as Dimebag Darrell, was born in Grand Prairie, Texas.

Growing up in Arlington, his father, country songwriter Jerry Abbott, encouraged Darrell and his brother Vinnie Paul in their musical interests and immersed them in country western. Other sounds beckoned, though, and the Abbott brothers gravitated to Black Sabbath and Van Halen.

They formed the first lineup of Pantera in 1981 alongside the record label Metal Magic to release their early music, much of it in the era’s conventional hard rock vein. Pantera gained new intensity and direction, though, when singer Phil Anselmo joined in 1986.

In 1990, Pantera signed to Atlantic and released their first major label album, “Cowboys from Hell,” followed by “Vulgar Display of Power” in 1992 and “Far Beyond Driven” in 1994. The last debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts.

While rock critics had their ears turned toward Seattle grunge, it was Pantera’s style of fast, hard, heavy metal that often ruled the commercial roost from Dimebag Darrell’s hometown of Arlington. Dimebag performed with everyone from Anthrax to David Allan Coe, and Pantera won fans abroad with the 1991 Monsters of Rock concert in Moscow, a screeching performance of liberatory rage on the verge of the Soviet Union’s collapse.

By 2003, tensions in the band led to a split, with Phil Anselmo taking the Pantera name and the founding Abbott brothers forming the new group Damageplan. Their first album released the following year, but this chapter in Dimebag’s career was tragically cut short when he was shot and killed in Columbus, Ohio, in December 2004. He was laid to rest in Arlington with one of Eddie Van Halen’s guitars.

Gone too soon, Dimebag Darrell’s legacy with Pantera and Damageplan is an extensive one. Guitar Player magazine named him on of the 10 most important guitarists ever, a testament to the power of homegrown Texas metal.