While recording his 1958 hit single Rumble, Link Wray took a pen and punched holes in the tweeters of his amp to get a combination of distortion and tremolo never before heard from an electric guitar. And although there were no words in Rumble, the grungy guitar riffs so convincingly emulated the menace of a real teenage rumble that the song was banned by some radio stations – quite a feat for a song with no vocals or lyrics.
The song came to life when Wray and his Wraymen were playing a gig in the Washington DC area. Some of the kids requested the band play The Stroll by The Diamonds, but Wray didn’t know it and started piecing together the gritty, full-on, down and distorted creation.
Wray would go on to make many more excellent, viciously moody records – most of them instrumental – though none of them equalled the success of Rumble.
By making a guitar sound better by monkeying with his electronics, he was breaking ground for Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix to take even more extreme liberties.
Video
Related Posts
Bobby Freeman 17-year-old Bobby Freeman was still at High School in San…
Mickey & Sylvia Mickey Baker was a music instructor and Sylvia Vanderpool one…
Fireballs, The They were acclaimed as pioneers of the surf sound alongside…
Little Peggy March Born Margaret Annemarie Battavio in Pennsylvania, Peggy began singing at…
Duane Eddy Duane was born in Corning in far upstate New York,…
Mudlarks, The The Mudlarks were a family group from Luton, Bedfordshire, originally…
Liverpool Five, The The Liverpool Five (four of them were actually from Fulham!)…
Los Mockers Los Mockers formed as a college band in Montevideo, Uruguay,…
