Category: Link Wray

…from a decade in obscurity, the king of guitar rumble himself was back. With a stripped-down sound that could have been a companion to Dylan’s Basement Tapes, Link Wray set stereo amplifiers ablaze with “Fire and Brimstone.” A ferocious bottleneck slide exposé kicks off the piece—rest assured listener, the power chording maestro of primitive rock, he remains, but with more than a few new tricks up his sleeve. Phaser-heavy chords wash over the piece as a backbeaten wallop of percussion sends the whole cacophony into a backwoods romp. Then he sings. Wray had experimented with vocals on some previous recordings but any attempt at a calm serenade had gone the way of fancy studio tricks. This was a WAIL.

The annals of rock & roll are littered with various and sundry odes to doing yer own thang. This here is Link Wray’s take. All open-road and windows rolled wayyy […]