Musician Link Wray dies

Link Wray, who invented power chords and put the heavy in heavy-metal guitar, has died. Best-known for the landmark 1958 instrumental “Rumble,” the North Carolina native was 76 years old.

According to his Web site (www.linkwraylegend.com), Wray died at home on Nov. 5 in Copenhagen, Denmark, his home for many years. No cause of death was given beyond a statement that “…his heart was getting tired.”

Word of Wray’s death got out after private funeral services on Friday. Bob Dylan paid tribute to Wray on Sunday night, opening his performance at London’s Brixton Academy with an abbreviated version of “Rumble.”

Though his biggest hit was nearly a half-century ago, Wray remained an influential elder figure, cited as a key figure in the evolution of punk and heavy metal guitar. In 2002, Guitar World magazine included Wray on a list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

“He is the king,” Pete Townshend of The Who once wrote in the liner notes to a Wray album. “If it hadn’t been for Link Wray and ‘Rumble,’ I would have never picked up a guitar.”

Born Frederick Lincoln Wray, Jr., in Dunn in 1929, Wray was three-quarters Shawnee Indian. Legend has it that Hambone, an African-American guitarist who was traveling with Barnum and Bailey’s circus, taught Wray how to play guitar when he was just 8 years old.

Wray started out playing in bands with his brothers under various names — Lucky Wray and the Lazy Pine Wranglers, Lucky Wray and the Palomino Ranch Hands and Link Wray and the Wraymen, among others. Early on, he sang as well as played guitar. But after losing a lung to tuberculosis while on active duty during the Korean War, Wray played mostly instrumentals.

Wray struck gold with his first and biggest hit, “Rumble,” which hit No. 16 in 1958 despite being banned in some cities for the alleged violence of its sonic overtones. Wray’s playing on “Rumble” was the dirty underside of guitarist Duane Eddy’s clean twang, with an ominous, distinctively distorted tone. Wray got the effect by punching holes in his amplifier speaker with a pencil.

“Most people only know Link Wray for ‘Rumble,’ but all his work has that really stinging, biting tone,” says Jon Heames, a guitar-teacher in Raleigh and veteran of many Triangle bands. “‘Rumble’ was actually considered dangerous at the time, like it might cause kids to join gangs or something just by virtue of its guitar tone. It’s quaint now, to think that a dirty guitar sound could lead someone down an evil path. But that’s how revolutionarily fuzzy it was.

“He perfected an attitude and a look as one of the original leather-jacketed punks. Long before the Ramones, Link Wray was the ultimate scary greasy biker guy at a time when there was the fear that gangster bikers might invade the sockhop and start a brawl.”

Wray had a few more hits, including 1959’s “Raw-Hide,” although none as big as “Rumble.” But he continued working and recording throughout his life, touring the U.S. as recently as last summer. “Rumble” remains his calling card, one of the rock era’s most recognizable pieces of music. Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” Steven Spielberg’s “Independence Day” and the 2004 surfing documentary “Riding Giants” are just a few of the movies the song has been in over the years.

Wray is survived by his wife and son, Olive and Oliver Wray.