Since my introductory post, I heard about LINK WRAY’s death, at 76, at his home in Copenhagen apparently on November 5 (it wasn’t widely reported until around the 21st). Wray is possibly the ultimate example of what’s wrong with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (into which he has criminally not been inducted) and our whole culture which respects fleeting popularity over genuine, lasting artistic breakthrough (more about that in a future blog).
Talk about someone who was both great himself and had a massive impact on the form. His obituaries mentioned that his songs were in movies such as Pulp Fiction, Independence Day, and Breathless, and included testimonials from many ‘60s English rockers such as PETE TOWNSHEND (“He is the king; if it hadn’t been for Link Wray and “Rumble,” I would have never picked up a guitar.”) I mean, that alone should have gotten Wray into the Hall (another huge influence on Townshend, JOHNNY KIDD & THE PIRATES, is also missing from its ranks). Heck, LES PAUL has been inducted, as he should be, and few others beside him had more to do with rock guitar than Wray, outside of the still remarkable CHUCK BERRY. Wray was a true American original from North Carolina. He and his WRAYMEN, with their instrumental ‘50s classics like 1958 #16 “Rumble” and “Raw-Hide,” jolted all the Townshends and would-be Townshends in rock history by introducing the ultimate tool: The power-chord. It’s hard to imagine the last 47 years of rock without it.
I often said as much in my reviews of Wray’s anthologies. As I said in my review of Sundazed’s wonderful early-works double-CD collection Slinky: The Epic Sessions ‘58-’61, he was “a definite link between the U.S. bluesmen that preceded him and the British Invasion that he galvanized; this is basic power-chord rock ‘n’ roll where the guitar achieved primacy as a dangerous weapon for the first time. The lack of vocals on all but a few tracks made Wray less remembered than the Brit giants he inspired, but this stuff is down and dirty and fun, with some inspired, menacing playing on every song. There’s a potpourri of styles, from blues (“Ramble”) to R&B to rockabilly to surf to hillbilly struts, with Wray soloing over them all like he hates you. These disclose the six-string axe as the beastly junkyard dog of instruments it would later become. This is no polite DUANE EDDY twang, much as there’s similar ethos and echoes of that popular style. This was stuff to scare your parents with, and it still sounds scorchin’ and indecent.”
And like true greats, such as JOHNNY CASH, CARL PERKINS, FATS DOMINO, and JERRY LEE LEWIS, the man was always hot live, for 50 years!!! I didn’t see Wray play until 1979, at the old uptown Hurrah club, when I barely knew who he was and when he was already 25 frickin’ years into his career. (I was a teenager with a free night in New York while my parents were out of town; it was just something to do, and I knew he was a formative legend, and I knew a few of his great songs.) He was loud as heck and pretty stunning, even then. And he was every time I saw him thereafter. As recently as 2003 at Village Underground, he was playing – at age 73! – deafening, thunderous, rock guitar even though he could barely hear anymore.
As I said then in my review: “Wielding the electric guitar like a sonic blowtorch, AARP membership hasn’t dimmed his attack, attitude, or sense of aural destruction at all. Seeing/hearing is believing: I’d defy anyone to find a kid a quarter his age that plays with a bigger sense of huge-riff mayhem than this guy so clearly off his loon. Skinny like an old tree branch (what does he weigh now, 90 pounds?) and walking brittle, he kept repeating the same absurd spiels over and over between his instrumental songs, variations of “I could be dead and you all could be heaven’s angels, I mean, I don’t know.” If he wasn’t as drunk as he appeared, he’s certainly grown a lot madder since the days decades ago when he used to play around town with super-fan ROBERT GORDON! His gap-tooth smile and facial expressions make him seem like a southern troublemaker grinning at his moonshine distillery, looking like he just pushed a woman in the pool with her clothes on and laughing at the commotion he deliberately caused. And he hops in his fashion still, left to right and back to the beat, then points his guitar like it’s shooting the rapid-fire notes at the different sectors of the crowd. Behind him, just to his right, his Danish wife of many decades OLIVE JULIE POVLSEN hits a tambourine with a drumstick (!) not far from his ear, leading one to believe that 50 years of amplified decibels have done such a number on his hearing; it’s the only way he can follow the beat of the drummer right behind him. Because if you think the old man plays on the quieter side, think again: This was one of the loudest concerts I’ve seen in a long while. Wray’s amp is so loud, the quasi-surf chords he favors reverberate, rattle, and shake like a MY BLOODY VALENTINE or KILLING JOKE show. One wonders if his contemporary, DICK DALE, still maintains such a volume at his gigs? When Wray aims his guitar at your chest, he makes sure that every abrupt yank with his right hand and every hard pull and jerk with his left hits your innards like a set of cluster bombs.”
Link, we owe a lot of our rock ‘n’ roll entertainment to you, and I for one will miss your oddball power shows. Newcomers? Try that Slinky set, then go to Rhino 1993 comp Rumble! The Best of Link Wray. And will someone make a movie about this legend’s life already?
