Link Wray’s 1958 singe Rumble is one of the most influential songs in the rock canon. Everyone from Jimmy Page to Bob Dylan to Iggy Pop hold the track in the highest regard, saying it changed the way they perceived music, and undoubtably the same can be said for much of their generation.
The instrumental’s use of fuzz and distortion, achieved by Wray poking holes in his speaker cone (at least six years before The Kinks famously did so on You Really Got Me), was nothing short of revolutionary. The sound has been recreated countless times since.
Now a sequel to Rumble, called Son of Rumble, has been unearthed, and The Black Keys’ frontman Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound label is set to release it next year. You can hear it for the first time below.
Hear rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Link Wray’s freshly unearthed sequel to ‘Rumble’, one of the most influential rock songs of all time.
As Rolling Stone note, Wray recorded the song soon after Rumble, but it has remained in his archives until now.
“I saw him play in Cleveland at the Grog shop and he blew my mind,” Auerbach said in a statement. “To get the chance to put out unreleased songs on Easy Eye Sound is amazing and a dream I never thought was possible. It’s time we give Link Wray a statue on the top of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
Son of Rumble, alongside another unreleased Wray track called Whole Lotta Talking, will be released as a 7-inch on April 13th via Easy Eye Sounds. Pre-order it here.
[via Rolling Stone]
