‘Rumble’: Link Wray’s simple instrumental more influential than Elvis
The rock ‘n’ roll boom of the 1950s produced more than its fair share of musical icons. From Elvis Presley to Chuck Berry, the rockabilly age stars kicked off the rock genre in a stunning fashion. Despite the era’s vast importance, rock music moved on from the styles of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis pretty quickly, leaving these figures mostly as remnants of rock and roll past. In contrast, modern rock still bears the striking influences of one often overlooked figure: Link Wray.
Wray had always harboured a desire for musical greatness, but after contracting tuberculosis during his stint in the Korean War, the North Carolina-born songwriter was told he would never sing again. So, in answer to this quandary, Wray instead dedicated himself to mastering the guitar. During the late 1950s, there were many figures—like Chuck Berry—reinventing the art of the guitar, pioneering unique and creative playing styles that went on to influence the wider rock scene. However, nobody played quite like Link Wray.
A defining artist of the rockabilly scene, Wray’s first mainstream hit came in 1958 with the release of the stunning instrumental track ‘Rumble’. Built around a simple D to E chord progression, the song certainly did not feature the complex rockabilly guitar stylings of people like Berry, yet the impact of Link Wray’s 1958 single can still be heard in modern rock and roll. The appeal of the track did not come from the guitar playing itself but rather the distorted effects Wray employed.
Nowadays, you can achieve virtually whatever guitar tone you want by employing different amplifiers and pedals, while guitar music during the 1950s used almost exclusively clean tones. Yearning for something a little dirtier, Wray attacked the speaker cone of his amplifier using a pencil, which resulted in the kind of distortion that guitarists have been chasing ever since.
In the spirit of rock and roll delinquency, the single was also a cause of controversy upon its release. Radio stations believed the song’s title, along with its dark guitar tones, would encourage anti-social behaviour and, bizarrely, gang violence. The resulting controversy led to ‘Rumble’ being the first and only instrumental song to be banned from American radio. Inevitably, if you ban a song, young people are far more likely to seek it out – as has been proven by later acts like the Sex Pistols.
While many artists and audience members at the time were apprehensive to embrace the distorted tones of ‘Rumble’, it went on to have an undeniable impact on the iconic rock groups of the 1960s. Bands like The Who and The Kinks would likely never have existed – at least not in the same form – without the dirty tones of ‘Rumble’. By extension, the track played a substantial role in inspiring punk, metal, new wave and virtually every rock style and subgenre to come to the forefront since the 1950s.
Although Link Wray might not be afforded the same iconic status as figures like Elvis Presley or Little Richard, his inventive guitar tones were much more important to the development of the rock genre. Every guitarist to establish themselves in the past six or seven decades owes a significant debt to the pioneering sounds of Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’, and it continues to be one of the most significant rock and roll songs of all time.
