Link Wray and the Raymen

Ever heard of Link Wray? He was a fifties guitarist. Part of a band for a life, included brothers, called the Raymen. I’m gonna call all bands Link was in ‘Raymen’. And Mr. Wray was usually in a band. One of the early Raymen had a novelty hit called ‘Rumble’.

I saw Link Wray live. It was the last of the 1990’s. He’d surfaced with an album called ‘Shadowman’, and I dug what he did. The show was in a venue where I like the bands, you can get a good drink, the people are alright, but the low ceiling and lounge decor kills rock bands. So I had to go closer than I wanted to get the vibrations. For all of that, Mr. Wray sounded great. He had never stopped doing what he did with the Raymen, same thing, and had ignored everything since. Which is not to say the music sounded as it did before, because it did not. I don’t know enough about tech equipment, but the guitar and amps were upgraded somehow—the rockabilly echo was still there, and some tremolo (amplitude quiver—at the time, built into some amps), perhaps aided by modern pedals? but the guitar had more middle and natural sustain. High up, there was a little noise, an ache on the angry notes, which seems new. Without the echo, people might think of it as a near‐metal sound. The songs were pretty much the same though… unless you were a fan you wouldn’t know what they were… aside from the interesting addition of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Run to the Jungle’, a song which must have been written ten years after the first Raymen had their run.

Anyhow, I got to say, for all my going to the gig, and a good night, there’s something I’ve never figured about Raymen. Here’s Robert Christgau reviewing a 1971 disc,

… The playing (not much feedback) is better than the vocals is better than the songs, and on the whole it’s pretty dumb. But I have to grant that the man sings about getting crucified by the Establishment as unselfconsciously as a back‐porch bluesman sings about trains, which must be worth something. Right? C+

And I don’t have the reference to hand, but Joe Carducci said something like this (gonna put this in quotes, but it’s not a reference, more a drift of memory),

After rock had come into existence, but when it was not popular [late 50’s, post Elvis Presley group, pre‐Beatles R.C.] some people worked out valuable new approaches to the rock format. The Raymen were one of these…

Joe Carducci has The Raymen down as one of the bands who carved their own form from rock’s raw materials. Which puts them in with, oh, Little Richard, The Yardbirds, Free, and so forth.

Look, I’m good with what The Raymen, whatever Link is fronting, do. It is distinctive. It’s Rockabilly drums, but slowed off and kept square. Some people somewhere I think said that might be because Mr. Wray is American Indian, so it’s like an Indian drum beat, but I got no info and I’d say that’s stretching it. It could be because Mr. Wray is sorta heavy. Twelve years later he may have been a man for Spooky Tooth or Black Sabbath. Anyway, over those drums there are basslines that account as three or four note riffs. The bass must be like that because the voice sure isn’t carrying the melody. Link’s brother Vernon sang longtime, and late in the 70’s Mr. Wray was hooked with the Punk/Retro/New‐Waveish Robert Gordon, who was a singer. But Link himself lost a lung in war service, so as a singer he’s ok, but no sonic idol. Also, the bass must anchor and motor the tunes because, aside from having no singer, Raymen don’t do the melodic guitar instrumental thing. You know the melodic guitar thing, that time, The Shadows, The Ventures, all of that. No, Link, and this is where it is Link, simply drags guitar chords. He will wait for the sound to die before he drags another chord. Then he’ll fiddle with a few notes, maybe find a few tones that matter, then drag a chord again. And it may be pushing it to call anything he plays a ‘chord’.

Anyway, I’m up one night, and a roll a couple of Raymen tracks. And revelation strikes. Revelation. Not a terribly useful thing. If you’ve been drinking or toking or similar you usually wonder next morning what it was. But I don’t drink or toke, especially alone. Even then, revelation is pretty useless. It means nothing to anyone else. That’s why I’m writing.

Hear now, there has always been a tension for me because I’m all with Mr. Christgau. He is right. The so‐called songs are little bass figures on a chord sequence, Link can’t sing and the guitar don’t play. I happen to like it, the setup, but there’s nothing there for Mr. Christgau. How do I square that against Mr. Carducci’s opinion of primary force and relevance? Sure, the Raymen sound is unique, but so was Minnie Ripperton. Then it came to me.

See, how do guitarists play nowadays? Electric guitarists? I’ve heard and seen enough of them in action. Well, a lot of them like to walk to the amp and get the feedback going, right? Now the dust has settled—though this argument will run until those guys get their clogs popped—amplified guitarists probably got Pete Townsend to thank for that. And the more electric guitarists like to get their foot on the pedal, then shape that melody. That one is fire down by Jimi Hendrix. And the ones who have gone out and got some kit organised and got a bit of practice in, those guys twiddle the knobs, flip some switches, tread on those pedals to get one section set against another. Well, that’s a big chunk of Led Zeppelin’s pop appeal, the way it was organised then engineered by Jimmy Page. Nobody thinks about it. That, these guitarists are gonna say, is what I heard on the record. I wanna do those things.

This is what it is with the Raymen. Mr. Link is playing the electrics, as instrument. That’s why the dragged chords—it’s godda sound. That’s why the twiddly notes. On the track ‘Rumble’, Mr. Link, as noted by several people, while the song is being recorded, turns up the tremelo. It’s not because he forget to set it right. Leastways, forgot or not, it’s the increase in tremelo that makes the guitar sound more and more shakey, to the point of fading in and out, as the bass riff pounds on. How good is that, on a song called ‘Rumble’?

And you can check for yourselves, or tell me otherwise but, far as I know… never before. Eddie Cochran had some heavy and pretty effects going on in the studio, but it was stacking for pop. Bo Diddley played some far‐far‐out guitar pings, but as special effect to construct into a track. But here are the Raymen, crashing bone chords for an amp, tremoloing notes, picking out amp tones, bending strings, utilising sustain to let it ring. I’ll bet Pete Townsend and Jimi Page knew all about this. Do you know Raymen, aside from ‘Shadowman‘, recorded a track called ‘Ace of Spades’? And that all the others are called ‘Dinosaur’, ‘Apache’, ‘I’m Branded’, ‘Nitro’, and so forth? And last night, I got it. And to think the Raymen explorations are built into their own structure of dragging beats and engine‐throb bass—that’ll be why Joe Carducci writes them as primal. Awesome.

Sustain note: That means Rock is not Blues.

Pick clatter: I found this un‐cited quote from Allmusic, credited to Pete Townsend,

He is the king; if it hadn’t been for Link Wray and ”’Rumble,’” I would have never picked up a guitar.