The Link Wray thread
Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:28 am
Link seems to pop up in conversation all over the site but I couldn't find a dedicated thread and after a few days on a nothin' but Link musical diet I figured he deserved one. The problem is, where do you start? The obvious answer is in 1958 with "Rumble", where Link is said to have invented the power chord and paved the way for the future of rock. A string of classic instrumental sides follows: "Rawhide" (1959), "Jack the Ripper" (1961), "Ace of Spades" (1965). Those are the songs I first heard on a dodgy old Link Wray and the Wraymen compilation I used to listen to over and over in a friend's garage when I was 16 or 17. For most people, those instrumentals ARE Link Wray.
But the records Link made in the 70s (with vocals!) in his Three Track Shack (a three-track studio in a converted chicken shack on his farm in Maryland) are, to my mind, even better than his early instrumentals. His voice is incredible (he lost a lung to TB, which gives him a rasp all of his own), the songs are great and the sounds - fuzzed out and funky - are fucking incredible. Link was such an uncomplicated player - never played anything too fancy, but every note he hit was always the right one. He had FEEL and TONEZ up the yin-yang.
Even after the Three Track Shack records (they're collected on a the "Wray's Three Track Shack" compilation) sank without a trace, he kept moving around the US and Europe making amazingly good records for a string of different labels.
He had more soul than Boz Scaggs:
He brought more funk than the Stones:
But perhaps my favourite Link Wray-related record is the solo album put out by his brother Vernon in 1972, "Wasted". It was recorded in the Three Track Shack and Link's guitar (acoustic and electric) is all over it. Vernon's voice is very different to his brother's - think Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash - but he knew how to write and record a song. Here are a couple of tracks.
So, let's all share our Link links here
But the records Link made in the 70s (with vocals!) in his Three Track Shack (a three-track studio in a converted chicken shack on his farm in Maryland) are, to my mind, even better than his early instrumentals. His voice is incredible (he lost a lung to TB, which gives him a rasp all of his own), the songs are great and the sounds - fuzzed out and funky - are fucking incredible. Link was such an uncomplicated player - never played anything too fancy, but every note he hit was always the right one. He had FEEL and TONEZ up the yin-yang.
Even after the Three Track Shack records (they're collected on a the "Wray's Three Track Shack" compilation) sank without a trace, he kept moving around the US and Europe making amazingly good records for a string of different labels.
He had more soul than Boz Scaggs:
He brought more funk than the Stones:
But perhaps my favourite Link Wray-related record is the solo album put out by his brother Vernon in 1972, "Wasted". It was recorded in the Three Track Shack and Link's guitar (acoustic and electric) is all over it. Vernon's voice is very different to his brother's - think Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash - but he knew how to write and record a song. Here are a couple of tracks.
So, let's all share our Link links here