10 Greatest Link Wray Songs

Tomorrow, May 2nd, is the late Link Wray's birthday.  His hometown of Dunn, North Carolina will honor him with a concert on the same day.  Link Wray passed in 2005 but he left a substantial body of recorded music dating back to the 1950’s.  He graced nearly a hundred or more songs with his trademark raw guitar playing.  Now, as the festival celebrating his life and work approaches, is as good a time as any to highlight a few of Link’s best tracks.

Rumble

“Rumble” is Link Wray’s magnum opus.  It’s little more than an incredibly simple guitar riff but in Link’s hands it became a rock and roll anthem, comparable to “Johnny B. Goode” or “Rock Around The Clock.”  Except neither of those was as dangerous as “Rumble.”  Link’s entirely instrumental song was banned from several radio stations out of fear that its title and dynamic sound would encourage violence.  Fifty years later “Rumble” entered the Library of Congress.  
Decades before it was recognized by any formal institution the song inspired legions of guitarists and other musicians.  Rock legends Iggy Pop, Jimmy Page, and Pete Townshend, of The Stooges, Led Zeppelin, and The Who fame respectively, all credited “Rumble” with their desire to play music professionally.  Even the studio production was about as rock and roll as it gets.  Legend has it that Link stabbed his amplifier with a pen in order to get the raw sound of a live performance, thus creating the distortion and feedback that made history. 

Fire

Although Link Wray never duplicated the success of “Rumble” his career was revitalized in the 1970’s when he teamed up with singer Robert Gordon.  The duo’s biggest hit, “Fire,” was the result of two more music icons.  It was written by The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, for The King, Elvis Presley.  Elvis died before he had the chance to perform the song so Springsteen passed it along to Wray and Gordon because he thought they could do it justice.  The song has since been performed by The Pointer Sisters, Cher, Tom Jones, and Robin Williams doing an Elmer Fudd impression, but none could match the Robert Gordon and Link Wray version.  The tune’s famous driving bass line is best served with Link Wray’s guitar.

Home is Where The Heart Is

For the first decade or so of his career Link Wray mostly performed country western music.  When Elvis Presley arrived on the scene he changed the face of music and Link along with it.  Soon after Elvis popularized rock and roll Link began to move towards his trademark gritty style and he never forgot the role Elvis played in his musical development.  Link covered several of Elvis’s greatest hits including “Jailhouse Rock” and “Heartbreak Hotel,” but he also made the most out of some of The King’s more obscure work.  “Home is Where The Heart Is,” most famously featured in the Elvis movie Kid Galahad, is a fairly generic pop ballad by Elvis’ standards but Link turned it into a folk/western epic.Link didn't sing much, especially early in his career, due to tuberculosis taking one of his lungs, but when he did his voice proved to be the perfect complement to his guitar, exposed and intimate, yet powerful.

Black River Swamp

Just as Dunn honors Link Wray now, the man never forgot his home.  He more than likely wrote the song “Black River Swamp” about his birthplace in North Carolina.  The opening line is “I was born down in the country where the cotton grows.”  Link is known to be from Dunn and I can personally confirm that cotton grows there.  
“Black River Swamp” appeared on Link’s self-titled 1971 album.  The record was quite a departure from his earlier work.  It was the first time he traded in heavy guitar riffs for folksy acoustic plucking.  The album was largely a mix of blues, country, and gospel, reminiscent of the easy listening country rock of The Byrds and The Rolling Stone’s Exile on Main St.  The change in style did more than display Link’s versatility.  It also created the perfect atmosphere for a nostalgic song about childhood in the country.

Ain't That Lovin' You Baby

This actually isn’t the similarly titled Elvis Presley song.  This is “Ain't That Lovin’ You Baby” by Jimmy Reed.  It’s Link Wray at his most bluesy.  Reed’s original was bouncy and upbeat, but Link slowed it down a little and added a gothic Howling Wolf breathiness.  The result is a thoroughly creepy song about obsession.

Run Chicken Run

Link had a knack for turning live improvisations into iconic recordings.  “Rumble” was born when he was asked to provide something the audience could dance “The Stroll” to.  Similarly, Link was performing at a wild frat party when he created “Run Chicken Run” based on the students’ animalistic actions.  The song starts with a sharp plucking to represent the pecking of a bird then falls into Link’s typical rockabilly guitar chords and alternates between the two for the rest of the track.  It’s a raving ride as Link changes abruptly from staccato stabs to a blunt roar.

Shawnee

It would be an understatement to say Link Wray was ahead of his time.  The world wasn’t quite ready when “Rumble” was released in the 1950’s.  Music and recording techniques finally caught up to Link by the 1990’s after the grunge movement began to use feedback and distortion to full effect.  Link’s career experienced another resurgence with some help from movies like Pulp Fiction and Desperado, which included Link’s music in their soundtracks.  “Shawnee,” from Link’s 1990 album Apache is one of his grungiest songs of the era.  It’s also one of several of his recordings that pays homage to his Native American heritage.

Young Love

Perhaps even more impressive than Link’s musical prowess was his dedication to his integrity.  He recorded several of his albums in an old chicken shack and was the farthest thing from a sellout.  One of the reasons he never quite fit in with pop radio was that he didn't have much interest in pretty choruses.  However, on occasion he showed a flair for melody.  One such song was “Young Love” from his 1997 album Shadowman.  It still has all of the loud guitar noise you’d expect from Link but with a sweetly nostalgic chorus about teenage romance.

And I Love Her

Link Wray generally stuck to Americana in his music.  His go to genres were rock and roll of course, as well as blues, folk, and country.  However, his work with Americana gained him a substantial European fan base and he lived in Denmark in the last years of his life, so it made sense for him to experiment with music from other countries once in a blue moon.  One such song came from four lads from Liverpool.  When Link covered “And I Love Her” from The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night he added a little of his Americana and removed the lyrics.  The result was one of Link’s best instrumentals since “Rumble.”  His guitar was all Link needed to convey the romance of the song.  Words would have just gotten in the way.

Midnight Lover

Link Wray typically took a punk rock approach to song length.  They were short, fast, and wild.  However, when the songs were long Link still made the most of every second.  Take, for instance, “Midnight Lover” from Link’s 1975 album Stuck in Gear.  The shortest version of the song is six and a half minutes long and others come in at almost nine minutes.  It’s a funk rock epic to put the Red Hot Chili Peppers to shame fifteen years before they became a household name.  The experiment with funk gave Link’s bassist a rare chance to shine and he made the most of it, but he still couldn't outshine Link’s incredible guitar solo.