I’ll be damned if I can remember this guy, apparently he was friends with Elvis and also this song was already 16 years old when this was taped live in 1974.
I’ll leave a quote from him I found in the Youtube comments.
“I don’t know if I was ahead of my time, but I knew I couldn’t be Elvis or Jerry Lee because I couldn’t sing. So I devoted all of my time and my energy and my soul into my guitar and sound, like punching holes in my speaker.” – Link Wray, 1998
I first saw this over on X with the title of “The Only Instrumental To Ever Be Banned From Radio”
Fuckin’ tightasses must have been skeered spitless..
I think it is pure, distilled Rock and Roll, boiled down to it’s bare essence.
Bad ass stuff… and the banning was stupid. Features in the movie Pulp Fiction so t here you have it.
It was also played (covered) in a scene from Vampires with James Woods IIRC.
That sounds like it involved a bowl, a late night in the garage, and him remembering someone stomping a mudhole in his soul.
He was in the Army in the Koren war. He was wounded and lost a lung there, hence no singing.
I remember the tune – don’t know why or where I would’ve heard it. Sure didn’t know anything about the guy. I was reminded of a story about Dave Davies (The Kinks) being the one who “invented” fuzz by poking holes in the speaker cone of his amp, and looked that up. So, he wasn’t the first one to do that – Link Wray did it before Davies.
For anyone curious: https://www.fuzzfaced.net/fuzz-origin.html
Bad assed Indian!
Mangey C
Distortion, great invention. Thank God for rock and roll.
Legend. Every Rock n Roll guitarist since has copied him.
Found this band back in the day, reminded me of LW at the time!
https://youtu.be/TIOim3J-jpU?list=RDTIOim3J-jpU
Other than “Rumble”, Wray never made much of a mark in the US. He moved to Denmark decades ago & played into late in his life there. Apparently had a good following in Europe.
Pete Townsend (of the Who) said that hearing Rumble had such an effect on him that he took up the guitar, and we know how that worked out. Link Wray built some of the foundations of rock and roll. Give a listen to Ace of Spades, Jack the Ripper, and many other. Primal stuff.
Cool as hell! That said, I reckon now we know who Neil Young stole his “Tonight’s the Night” era look from. 🙂