Darrell Lance Abbott was born on August 20, 1966 in Ennis, Texas, USto Carolyn and Jerry Abbott, a country musician and producer. He took up guitar when he was 12, and his first guitar was a Hondo Les Paul he got with a small amp. Winning a series of local guitar competitions, most notably held at The Agora Ballroom in Dallas, where he was awarded a Dean ML which he sold to Buddy Blaze who put a Floyd Rose bridge on it and gave it Dimebag's signature lighting bolt paint job and then gave it back to him years later. Coincidentally, his father had bought him a cherryburst finish Dean ML standard the morning before the competition. Abbott formed Pantera in 1981 with his brother Vinnie Paul on drums. The band played with acts such as Slayer, Megadeth, Venom, and Metallica, as well as traditional metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Motörhead, and Judas Priest. Pantera subsequently became a key formulator of the post-thrash subgenre of "groove" metal. It would not be ! until nine years after forming that Pantera saw its first piece of commercial success in its 1990 major label debut, Cowboys from Hell. Pantera's "groove" style came to fruition in its breakthrough album Vulgar Display of Power, released on February 25, 1992, which saw the replacement of the power metal falsetto vocals with a hardcore-influenced shouted delivery and heavier guitar sound. In 1994, Abbott dropped the nickname "Diamond Darrell" and assumed the nickname "Dimebag Darrell." Pantera began to
... 
