Fred Lincoln "Link" Wray Jr (May 2, 1929–November 5, 2005) was an American rock and roll guitarist, songwriter and occasional singer.
Wray was noted for pioneering a new sound for electric guitars, as exemplified in his hit 1958 instrumental "Rumble", by Link Wray and his Ray Men, which pioneered an overdriven, distorted electric guitar sound, and also for having, "invented the power chord, the major modus operandi of modern rock guitarist," "and...
more
Fred Lincoln "Link" Wray Jr (May 2, 1929–November 5, 2005) was an American rock and roll guitarist, songwriter and occasional singer.
Wray was noted for pioneering a new sound for electric guitars, as exemplified in his hit 1958 instrumental "Rumble", by Link Wray and his Ray Men, which pioneered an overdriven, distorted electric guitar sound, and also for having, "invented the power chord, the major modus operandi of modern rock guitarist," "and in doing so fathering," or making possible, "punk and heavy rock".
Wray was born in Dunn, North Carolina to Lillie M. Coats and Frederick ("Fred") Lincoln Wray. It was there that Link first heard slide guitar at age eight from a traveling carnival worker, a black man named "Hambone." Link and his family later moved to Norfolk, Virginia as his father got work in the Navy shipyards. Link served a hitch in the US Army and was a Korean War veteran. In 1956, his family later moved to Washington, D.C., and from there, they moved to a farm in...
less
