(Polydor, 1971)
Link Wray sings! on this lost country-rock classic, cut in a three-track converted chicken coop.
It sounds like nothing else. Outlaw Shawnee Indian Wray had already invented heavy rock and power-chord menace in 1958 with the greaser-gang threat-trawl of Rumble. Link’s 1960s were spent creating nasty, out-there, fuzz-toon whangery on his Danelectro Longhorn, on one-shot deals for tiny labels. Landed with just the one lung after Korea, Wray also started singing; the voice of the sprite that whispered in Beefheart and Jagger’s skull. Evil. It made Polydor think they could break America. America wasn’t ready for Wray’s mystic gospel grooves, beaten hound-dog voice and mean open-tuned slashes at his battered 1910 Gibson. Weird. Briefly available in 1998 on the 2-CD Guitar Preacher (with ever-excellent Colin Escott sleevenotes), the remastered Link Wray now confirms what has always been whispered. These are songs that hiss, squirm, groove, choogle and harmonise into your very soul. A masterpiece.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 01/12/2007
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