Link Wray - Rumble
Starting in 2018, the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame announced the creation of a new award category -- single records that shaped rock n roll.
One of the recipients of this new category was Link Wray's "Rumble"
Wray, whose music was popular in the late 50s, is known as the inventor of the "power chord", influenced many later artists, including Jimmy Page and Neil Young.
According to Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitartists" ....
When Link Wray released the thrilling, ominous "Rumble" in 1958, it became one of the only instrumentals ever to be banned from radio play – for fear that it might incite gang violence. By stabbing his amplifier's speaker cone with a pencil, Wray created the distorted, overdriven sound that would reverberate through metal, punk and grunge. Wray, who proudly claimed Shawnee Indian ancestry and lost a lung to tuberculosis, was the archetypal leather-clad badass, and his song titles alone – "Slinky," "The Black Widow" – convey the force and menace of his playing. "He was fucking insane," said the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach. "I would listen to 'Some Kinda Nut,' over and over. It sounded like he was strangling the guitar – like it was screaming for help." When Wray died in 2005, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen both performed "Rumble" onstage in tribute. "If it hadn't been for Link Wray and 'Rumble,'" said Pete Townshend, "I would have never picked up a guitar."
Are you ready to Rumble???
And....
Here's Jimmy Page listening to "Rumble"-- priceless!
= new reply since forum marked as read
“Link Wray’s “Rumble” took its name from Phil Everly’s suggestion that it sounded like a street fight. “It was mean,” Wray once said. “They banned ‘Rumble’ in New York City and Boston, but it just made it sell more.” Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend are just two of the many guitar players who have cited the menacing instrumental as a critical inspiration.”
Also, I cannot recommend “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World” highly enough!! Link is there, and so are a gazillion other artists whose music came to us from Native Americans...who frickin KNEW?? Not me!! It is simply stunning!!
Thank you, gal!
Rock On!!! 