Link
Wray: Wray’s Three Track Shack (Acadia 8082)
His place in the history of music was (permanently) secured
in 1957...by “Rumble”, one (literal) stroll
through a menacing garden of power-chords - with (mostly)
a blizzard of high-speed near-monotonic attack as its
token guitar “solo”. And...seldom has one cut
- before or since - been credited w/such wide-ranging
effects... But Link Wray, of course, didn’t stop
there. And...the body of work he put down, between 1955
and 1965, is - without a doubt - one of the truest glories
of early rock’n’roll...lean, mean, savagely
expressive, and a genuine monument to artistic integrity
overall...
Retiring - in disgust - to the Indian reservation where
he (along w/his brothers) was born, they then converted
an old/disused chicken coop into a supremely low-tech
recording studio...and set about recording whatever they
felt like, finally free of all “commercial”
restrictions. And, given that - now - all the Wray brothers
are dead...we’ll (sadly) never know exactly when
the individual tracks were cut...given the (nigh-on) criminal
critical disregard for this material over the last few
decades.
Four and a half albums came out - two on Polydor/one
on Virgin...and the rest on minors (the “half”
reissued on Big Beat 65, and one - by “Ray Vernon”
- that’s yet to attract any attention whatsoever)
which the good people of Arcadia have apparently not yet
heard about. But, the other three - albeit w/out any extras
- are all here. Because, only months before Link’s
death, someone - finally - has had the good sense to collect
together the all major label “three-track shack”
recordings... But, misunderstood by the hippies - and
dismissed by the punks - still, these are his “basement
tapes”...a trawl through his veritable wellsprings
- and, the centerpiece of this set, the never-before-reissued
Beans & Fatback is, in itself, a nigh-on masterpiece...flawed
only by the inclusion of one (platitudinous) ballad written
by another...
The rest, however, is a (very) mixed bag. His brother
Vernon’s album - Wasted, by “Ray Vernon”
- is mainly redeemed by the truly nasty “Tailpipe”,
and - no - I’m NOT going to sell you my copy, simply
because that track is a genuine keeper! Similarly, the
“Mordacai Jones” album on Polydor is very mixed,
but never scales the heights that Link’s own work
does. And, even Link Wray (his Polydor album of 1972)
betrays an uneven mix of pure genius - “Tail Dragger”
(his other great Wolf cover) + “Fire & Brimstone”
- as well as some genuinely weak cuts, plus a goodly leavening
of great home-made blues/rockers...
But, the real deal - and (absolutely) worth the price
of admission - is Beans & Fatback. Nail cans rattle,
fuzztone snarls...and (on one occasion) raw lumps of wood
substitute for drums. Because...this is where we actually
get to hear Link explore his earliest roots - in a brilliantly
unique meld/re-exploration of the blues/gospel/hillbilly/rock’n’roll
that (eventually) shaped his work... And...to be frank,
home-made art (almost) never equals this, particular,
peak. So...just listen - and, he died, by the way, on
the fifth of November, 2005...
John Henry Calvinist
