Today is the eighth anniversary of the death of Link Wray, who cast a very long shadow as a guitarist and songwriter. Fred Lincoln Wray Jr. was born in Dunn, South Carolina on May 2nd 1929 and he died in Copenhagen, Denmark on November 5th 2005. In a feature on him in an early 1970s issue of Rolling Stone, Wray said that he had an average childhood but that school bored him and the only classes he liked were band and choir. He either joined or was drafted during the Korean Conflict, developed tuberculosis, had an lung removed, and spent a year in an Army hospital. Doctors told him he would never sing again and, while he eventually proved them wrong, that may explain why he started his professional career writing instrumental songs. He had a respectable hit in 1958 with Rumble which arguably introduced the use of power chords in rock n roll, helping to pave the way for punk and metal. He followed up Rumble with with a few singles in the same vein, and Jack the Ripper in 1961 was probably his last significant appearance in the Top 40. During the British Invasion, Wray lost his recording contract and when back to South Carolina and converted an abandoned chicken house into a not terribly modern recording studio and started recording his own albums; he didnt produce any commercials hits but he was a staple on early FM radio and he toured worldwide and was amazingly popular in Europe. He did have a few fallow years, but in terms of his career, he had more lives than a cat. He was regarded as an elder statesmen by musicians as divergent as Jimmy Page, Iggy Pop, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Ramones, Pete Townsend, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, and The Stray Cats. He often appeared with retro-rocker Robert Gordon and they recorded two albums together. Wray only married once, in 1979 to Olive Povelsen, a Danish graduate student who met him while she was in America to do research on Native America Culture. In the early 80s, Wray moved to Denmark and regarded it as his home for the rest of his life. He was survived by his wife and one son, and he was buried in the crypt of the oldest church in Copenhagen. A few weeks ago, it was announced by the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame that Link Wray was a nominee for inclusion in 2014.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 22:36:28 +0000
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