Link Wray RIP

Robert Bennett talks about Link Wray, genius ...

Last November a true originator and legend of Rock’n’Roll died. His music was more prophetic and violent than anything Cash recorded, in San Quentin or anywhere else, but no Hollywood biopic seems likely. Worshipped by the likes of Townshend, Wayne Kramer, Iggy, and Johnny Ramone, Link Wray did more than anyone to wrench open the floodgates of hi-energy, primal, red-blooded Rock’n’Roll. He is daddy of the music that left the garage to conquer the world.

Today his songs sound as fast and fierce as ever and are as essential as those of Little Richard. Aside from Link’s invention of the power-chord and groundbreaking experiments with distortion, which other artist ever produced an instrumental so brutal that it was banned by radio stations due to its potential for inciting uncontrollable waves of teen violence?

Listening to “Rumble”, a collection issued on Rhino, tracks such as “Big City After Dark” and “Run Chicken Run” immediately stand out for the sleazy swagger and driving, deranged energy of their sound. It’s hard to believe these instrumentals were recorded at the beginning of the sixties because in them you hear The Cramps’ and Stooges’ finest and most exhilarating moments. “Big City After Dark” is a pounding, dirtily distorted twelve bar blues that sounds like it spawned the oozing grime of “I Need Somebody” on “Raw Power”. Wray’s guitar sounds incredibly ugly and mean as it slinks and slides through this slow blues. The picture evoked is of cruising gangs of leather-jacketed hoods as bad and mad as they come. “Run Chicken Run” on the other hand is a high speed chase, machine-like and full of wound-up tension.  It sounds like a prelude to some explosive and bloody mayhem. Link’s chicken-imitation riff resembles an obscene, relentless taunt. Playing live, he would sometimes crank this nerve-jangler out for over fifteen minutes. The owners of clubs in which Link and his band (The Raymen) made their trade would beg him not to play it because the place would inevitably be torn apart as a result. 
This music seems all the more remarkable when you learn that it was recorded in a chicken coop that the guitarist converted into a three-track studio: “the three-track shack”.

Like many other architects of the most powerful Rock’n’Roll, Link was no virtuoso player but turned rudimentary technique to his advantage through fearless experimentation. Punching holes with a pencil into the speakers of his amp he created a prototype fuzztone that rendered the sound of his guitar dirty and distant. This distortion was used to great effect on his two-chord marvel: “Rumble”. The track was banned and forced Wray to switch labels. Had he never made another record, “Rumble” would have been enough to change the course of Rock’n’Roll forever. The slow, crashing chords once heard are unforgettable. Snarling, heavy and exuding cool menace, “Rumble” is the kind of thing you can imagine the young MC5 soaking up at the drag-strip before they brought their own “thunder in the night forever” into existence.

The raw aggression of Link Wray’s music was probably inspired by experiences of which he remarked: “Elvis, he grew up white-man poor; I was growing up Shawnee poor.” As an impoverished Native American, Link had lived in fear of the Ku Klux Klan. While fighting in Korea he had a lung removed after a case of tuberculosis. This led to his focus on instrumentals as he was advised not to sing. However, on the fantastic:“The Shadow Knows” Link provides a B-Movie horror voice-over, “What evil lurks in the hearts of men?...the shadow knows!” before bursting into astonishingly creepy maniac laughter. It is pure Bela Lugosi madness and probably the height of the collection in terms of pure menace and derangement.

Despite his songs being used in numerous films, mainstream success eluded Link. Short of some titanic shift in cultural values it is highly unlikely that the music collected on “Rumble” will ever be given proper dues. The fact is, there is a bit of Link’s technique in all the true Rock’n’Roll that has been created since. Without his innovations in crude, powerful playing there is no telling how different things all could have been.

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