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LINK IN CONCERT 1958 AND 2002
Two Link Wray Concerts: 1958 and
2002
by
Dan Fox Link
Wray at a Maryland Fireman’s Carnival
Summer,
1958 The
summer of 1958 I turned fourteen and I worked at a swimming pool near my home in
southern Pennsylvania. A fine young girl, likewise fourteen, came to the pool
and told me that Link Wray was coming to the fireman’s carnival in a little
town across the Maryland border. And would I take her? Link Wray:
Rumble. Rawhide. The Milt Grant show out of DC. Buddy Dean’s frantic
dance party out of Baltimore. Bandstand. Jesus Christ! But it was too far to
ride my bike. I
don’t remember what I told my mother, but she drove me to Maryland and the
carnival and stayed in the background while I sniffed around my date and we
waited for Link to come on. After Link appeared I barely noticed her.
The
stage was a cement slab with metal folding chairs and bright lights with bugs
flying around them. The outdoor sound system was better suited to the hillbilly
bands that came to entertain the yahoos. How they booked Link Wray right after
he had had two big hits in a row, I’ll never know.
At
eight o’clock Doug Wray took his place behind the drums and Shorty walked on
with a hollow-body six-string bass. A little guy in a cheap suit and crewcut
strutted out and announced the show. Link came on strong with Rawhide, then
segued into Rumble. After that the music blurs together in a daze of sound and
image. I remember Right Turn and Apache, with the audience yelling its part. Ray
Vernon, who was Link and Doug’s older brother, M.C.’d the show and sang at least
one song. Link had a limited repertoire at that time, as he hadn’t yet produced
most of his songs. I believe he had just recorded Right Turn.
After
awhile Doug took the mike and sang Goosebumps, with a segue into Bony Marony.
Ray took over the drums for Doug, playing cross-handed and fairly well. Shorty
chimed in with a funny noise for Goosebumps and generally provided comic relief.
My date didn’t like Shorty. He was missing a front tooth and she thought he was
‘creepy.’ Link
wore all black, tight jacket and no tie. Doug and Shorty wore pink sport coats,
white shirts, ties, dark slacks – the standard uniform for band members at that
time. Ray Vernon wore a contrasting suit and tie as befitted the M.C. Link was
whip-thin as always; his black hair was short, greased back, no shades, 50s
punk-hoodlum smirk.
About
midway through the show an old guy in the audience heckled good-naturedly that
Link’s music was horse poop compared to country music. Link took the mike and
invited the guy on stage (“C’mon, Pop, we’re just having fun tonight….”) The old
guy actually got up there and belted out Foggy River, with Link and the band
accompanying him. We gave him a big hand and he grinned and grinned. Link ended with a gospel vocal and then took it on out with Rawhide. My mother, a classical violinist, remarked that Ray Vernon’s singing was good – he had ‘a voice’ as she put it. Since she regarded everything else that night as pure noise, this was high praise. I went home and decided to learn to play the guitar. I don’t know what happened to the girl. Link
Wray at the Middle East in Cambridge, MA
July
10, 2002. The
Middle East occupies a strange and wonderful old building on Massachusetts
Avenue in an area of Cambridge known as Central Square. Dudes and homeless and
students and misfits like me all hang out in the streets. On the way to the Link
Wray show I pass the entrance to the Marxist Education Center in a narrow
doorway that also advertises the Boston Dance Company rehearsal space. Graffiti,
old newspapers blowing in the streets, MacDonald’s, a wino digging deep into the
glop for cans. I’m smelling garbage and bus exhaust and hearing the sirens
scream in the distance. OK. Upstairs at the East features local rock bands; downstairs is a bigger space for
the headliners. Link Wray and the Wraymen are downstairs. Twelve bucks. Jesus,
you’d think they’d charge more for a legend.
I meet
Mitch in front of the East and we grab food in the cheaper of the East’s two
restaurants. Mitch is my age and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Link or 50s rock
stars in general, but he comes along so we can shoot the shit. He wears shades
for the occasion. We shovel down some bad kabobs and go to meet the man.
Downstairs
at the East is a big wooden cave with a bar on the right and ledges, alcoves and
benches in odd funky places. I see the size of the amps on stage and suck in my
breath. Link strides in and takes over the small stage - he’s smiling, having
a good time already, wearing the trademark leather jacket and black T and
slacks, old sneakers, no shades, packing a red Fender Stratocaster. He
introduces his lovely wife, his son Doug on bass, and his drummer. Then he grabs
the Strat like it was his dick and launches into Rumble at about 500 decibels.
Mitch stumbles backwards and his shades fall off. I’m laughing and digging it
all and getting dizzy as the bass from the refrigerator-sized amps slams my
brain into the back of my skull. They’re selling earplugs at the bar but I
figure fuck that, I’m here to get the full experience. After
Rumble comes Rawhide, and then I lose track. Mitch screams in my ear, ‘does he
do anything else?’ No, this is pretty much it, I answer. Mitch doesn’t get it,
but he came with me and that’s cool. I’m snapping pictures and getting as close
in as I can.
Link is
a better musician now, doing more, and his sidemen are hard-slamming pros.
Everything hangs together, screaming feedback and all. Link breaks a string and
finishes the number anyway, laughs about it and pulls on another guitar. I see
why his lovely wife is on stage – she helps him when his strap comes loose,
pulls his ponytail out from underneath it, moves his jacket out of the way when
he tosses it, shows him the request list. I notice that his wife is not as young
as I’d originally thought. But she kisses him on the cheek and makes sure
he’s OK. Link is
scheduled to do an hour and fifteen minutes. Instead he pounds it out for over
two hours. The second hour he sings a bit, just his guitar and him, and talks to
the audience as though they were his old friends. He’s got a very good voice.
Then it’s over and he says goodnight. I worm my way up to the stage, past a
beefy blonde chick with serious tattoos who high-fives me and screams, “Daddy!
Daddy!” and wait my turn to talk to him. He’s signing album covers, tickets,
menus, condoms, breasts, and some strange shit I can’t identify. I finally get
to him and he shakes my hand, smiles, he’s very professional. Then I tell him
about the 1958 show and his face changes. He remembers Shorty, Doug, Ray, all
who were at that show, gone now, passed away. He says, “My God, we were all
together.” Then he smiles and steps down off the stage to give me a big hug,
and asks my name.
Link
is a self-described hillbilly from North Carolina with “no brain,” as he puts
it, but at 73 he is a gentleman with class and a lot of heart.
Forty-four
years have passed since the show in Maryland. That 14-year-old girl who went
with me is now 58 years old. I’ve got four broken marriages and a mountain of
debt and no future. I have become the old guy at Link’s 1958 show. And I want
to see Link again.
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