BULLSHOT
Released in the states on VISA Records, this would be the last LP of new Link material in almost 20 years until the 1997 release of SHADOWMAN. Be sure to check out the review of this album (from a 1979 issue of Rolling Stone) at the bottom of this page!
GOOD GOOD LOVIN'
FEVER
SNAG
JUST THAT KIND
SWITCHBLADE
IT'S ALL OVER NOW BABY BLUE
RAWHIDE
WILD PARTY
THE SKY IS FALLING
DON'T
BULLSHOT
By Charles M. YoungROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, AUGUST 9, 1979
The first I knew of Link Wray was in 1971 when I read in ROLLING STONE that Peter Townsend though Wray was the greatest thing since sex (or something) because of two singles he'd released in the Fifties, "Rumble" and "Rawhide". At the time, I considered it a moral obligation to buy a record a month by an artist I'd never heard on the radio, so I ran right out and grabbed his Polydor album, LINK WRAY. Recorded in a chicken shack on a three-track machine, the LP was interestingly eccentric country rock, but I sure didn't hear what knocked out Townsend. The next time I was aware of Wray, he was backing Robert Gordon on two albums that didn't kill me either.
I'd just about given up on the guy when I put BULLSHOT on my turntable. Behold! Loud, deceptively simple, snarling guitar! Rock and roll capable of stirring my hormones when I can't wake up on the morning!
The resurrected Wray does a version of "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" that can make you forget Bob Dylan's ever existed. He's even considerate enough to include a remake of "Rawhide", so we can hear what Townsend heard. Backed by a murderous band that wasn't recorded in a chicken shack, Link Wray cooks with gas on the other cuts too. I just wish he'd released BULLSHOT in 1971 when I was peeling potatoes to pay for my records.