Link Wray, the electric guitar innovator who is often credited as the father of the power chord, died earlier this month at his home in Copenhagen, apparently of natural causes. He was seventy-six.
He may have died quietly, but Wray’s life was notable for its enthusiastic devotion to volume. “Rumble,” the guitarist’s 1958 signature song, had the unique distinction of being widely banned by radio stations across America despite the fact that it had no words.
As legend has it, Wray poked a pencil through the cone of his amplifier to achieve the song’s groundbreaking fuzz tone. Its ragged, ominous chords, overdriven and dragged to a crawl, sounded like an invitation to a knife fight. At a time of national hysteria over juvenile delinquency, many cultural scolds took the song’s implied threat literally.
Wray’s early, highly stylized instrumental swagger, further evidenced in follow-up hits such as “Raw-Hide” and “Jack the Ripper,” would prove to be a great inspiration for some of the most potent guitarists of the classic rock era, including Pete Townshend, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. Bob Dylan, another teenage fan, opened his show in London Sunday night by playing “Rumble” in tribute.
It’s “Rumble” that’s heard in Pulp Fiction. NewMexiKen had an entry about Wray last year.