STEEMIT OPEN MIC WEEK 68 - link wray's RUMBLE [cover] by music_gnar

For this week's openmic, I employed the skills of @echo-bat, who is learning the Bass Guitar.

Together, we perform Link Wray's Rumble, and instrumental track that pioneered aggressive emotions in music. This was the precursor to all punk rock and heavy rock.

Link Wray popularized the POWER CHORD

Link Wray was half Shawnee Native American. His mother was 100% native american.

Link Wray was also the pioneer of the DISTORTED GUITAR. He poked holes in his amplifier speakers with a pencil to make them sound angry.

The song "Rumble" was actually improvised when the Wraymen were asked to perform “The Stroll” by the Diamonds, which they didn’t know. Link describes God telling him the riff, which the band backed him up on flawlessly, a jam they at the time, called "Oddball."

Link Wray served in the Korean war where he contracted tuberculosis. He had to have one whole lung removed. The doctors told him he would never sing again. This caused him to put his heart and soul into simple chords.

In 1958 Wray's "Rumble" was banned in Boston and New York City because they thought it would incite teenage gang violence. It doesn't get much gnarlier then that.

In 1971 He set up a recording studio inside of a chicken coop. Long before the days of DIY, and without a drumset, he would bang on a tin can to get the beat. He called his recording studio "Wray's Shack Three Tracks."

He influenced many artists we are familiar with today. Bob Dylan, Neil Young... Both were influenced by Link Wray, who was artistic beacon to all coming-of-age youngsters hearing something dangerous in Wray’s guitar tone, inspiring them to get a guitar and turn up.

According to Rolling Stone, Pete Townshend of The Who once said, “He is the King; if it hadn’t been for ‘Rumble,’ I would have never picked up a guitar”


"The only people I ever really looked up to were Link Wray and Iggy Pop," said Mark E. Smith of The Fall. "Guys like…Link Wray…are very special to me."

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"With one mean D to E chord change, Link Wray changed the electric guitar forever."