Link Wray for Coastie

Darryl Hattenhauer

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http://youtube.com/watch?v=H0hrobWkonE

Coastie,

You mentioned Link Wray. Here is a Link link from the height of his geezerdom. Back in the mid seventies, I heard that Pete Townsend met Link for the first time and got all excited and said Link was his hero etc., so I went back and got a copy of "Rumble" (which hadn't been on the radio in my hometown). That's when I found out about Link getting his tone from poking a pencil into his speaker.
 

coastie99

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Pardon my giving offence, but I don't think Wray-man was worth a pinch of poo !

He had his 15 seconds of fame with "Rumble", and then......????

Rumble's interesting only as a history-piece; easy to see why Pete found Link's "style" interesting though !
 

Walter Broes

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Link Wray is one of my guitar heroes, one of my very favorite players. But I'm not going to "defend" him, you like/get him or you don't - and I can see how his music must be unbelievable blunt and too simple for some people.

But I think he's one of the people they invented the word "idiosyncratic" for - what he does seems extremely easy when you listen to it, but it's a lot harder to imitate than you'd think. Link Wray had a very strange, unique touch on the guitar, and obviously some unique ideas about composing, what makes a tune. He really was one of a kind.
And he pretty much invented the distorted power chord.
 

coastie99

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Walter Broes said:
Link Wray is one of my guitar heroes, one of my very favorite players. But I'm not going to "defend" him, you like/get him or you don't - and I can see how his music must be unbelievable blunt and too simple for some people.

But I think he's one of the people they invented the word "idiosyncratic" for - what he does seems extremely easy when you listen to it, but it's a lot harder to imitate than you'd think. Link Wray had a very strange, unique touch on the guitar, and obviously some unique ideas about composing, what makes a tune. He really was one of a kind.
And he pretty much invented the distorted power chord.

Thanks Walter.

An analysis that's easy for me to understand.

All power to the distorted power chord !!
 
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