Link Wray’s “Rumble”

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

PRX

Arts

4.6 • 675 Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2018

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Young guitarists emulate standard-bearers like The Kinks’ Dave Davies, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton. But when those guitarists were making their mark in the 1960s, they worshipped their own guitar hero: Link Wray.

Sixty years ago, in 1958, Wray released “Rumble,” an instrumental song that had the 12-bar form of blues but pioneered the distortion effect that would become a defining element in rock. It’s what you hear in the very first notes of songs like The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and The Who’s “I Can See for Miles. “

On this podcast extra, Steven Van Zandt of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and James Hutchinson, who plays bass guitar with Bonnie Raitt, weigh in on Wray’s technique and influence.

“It’s got to be one of the most basic and yet fundamentally moving songs that have ever been recorded for the purposes of rock music,” says Brian Wright-McLeod, author of The Encyclopedia of Native Music.

Guitar player Stevie Salas says Wray was proud of his Native American heritage, and the song’s success turned Wray into an inspiration for other Native American musicians. In fact, the song is in a title of a documentary about Native Americans in rock that Salas produced and appears in: Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Studio 360. I'm Kurti Anderson.
0:06.2	My name is Steven Van Zand, with Bruce Springsteen and East Street band. I also act occasionally, and so I'm a DJ.
0:14.3	This is James Hutch the Touch Hutch Hutchinson, which is a nickname that Link Ray gave me many years ago and Bonnie Raitt still uses to this day.
0:22.6	This is Brian Wright McLeod, author of the Encyclopedia of Native Music.
0:26.6	I think Rumble is a very simple song and as instrumental, it's got to be one of the most basic, but yet fundamentally moving songs that have ever been recorded for the purpose of rock music.
0:47.3	It was a 12-bar blues as far as the form went, but when Link did it, it was rock and rolling.
1:08.0	The show will resume very, very shortly, but first, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you to follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Studio 360 show.
1:10.8	And now, back to the podcast.
1:16.6	My first experience with what we call the hard rock riff and the hard rock part being a distorted guitar,
1:19.8	my first experience was the Kink's first hit single in America called You Really Got Me.
1:31.3	And I read that Dave Davies had, in fact, sliced his speakers to get that sound.
1:34.3	Well, it turns out he wasn't the first to have done that.
1:37.3	When Link Raig battered holes in his speakers in the late 50s
1:41.3	to achieve the sound he was getting live when he cranked the amplifier up.
1:45.0	I mean, it was a pretty, it was an unknown commodity.
1:48.0	Up to that point, guitars were either strummed or they were picking or, you know, various
1:56.0	chording styles, but to have the invention of what they call the power cord.
2:00.0	A power cord would be a chord on a guitar with a really distorted tone that you could let ring for quite a while in a tune for maybe a bar or a number of bars. I'm I'm I'm
2:18.3	I'm
2:20.3	I'm Rumble is an act of musical rebellion just by the nature of the sound of the guitar itself.
2:53.6	Rumble was the only instrumental record ever banned from radio at that point.
2:57.6	When people would see him perform, you know, his shades never came off, he was always dressed in black leather.
	...

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