On this date twenty years ago (11/5/05) we lost guitarist Link Wray. On this anniversary I would like to share the story of how Link and I met on November 5, 1997, eight years to the day before his passing, how he influenced me as a musician and human being, pushed me to track down my birth mother, and how he christened me with the only nickname I have ever had (which ties in to a song on my Phantom Lightkeeper album Shore Ghosts).
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Gabe’s Iowa City was the mecca for music in Iowa in the 90s. I can’t even begin to list all the bands I saw there back in the day, and though I lived in Illinois when 1997 rolled around, I made the trip back that fall to go see Link with Billy “Butch” Satterfield, the guitarist I had played with throughout high school. Billy had first introduced me to Wray years prior, and I had been taken by Link’s raw blend of rockabilly, country, and rock n’ roll, and was excited to see the icon in person. Gabe’s is a small room, and as opening acts The Bent Scepters and Diselhed made their way through their sets, the crowd kept growing. This is one of those venues where the entire floor would heave and sag when an audience was jumping around, and where you could feel the resonance of the music through your feet. The energy in the room was intense, and I was thrilled to note the wide age range of those around me.
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Diselhed were touring with Link, doing double duty as opener and serving as his backing band, so when they were done with their set they remained on stage as anticipation in attendees grew. Then, from the tiny side room (Gabe’s has no “dressing room”) off the side of the stage, the leather jacket-clad Link Wray made his way to the stage and plugged in his red Yamaha SG-2 guitar, raising his hands above his head in fists toward the crowd. He walked over to his Marshall amp and ran his hand across the top of the knobs, diming everything, and feeback assaulted us all, warning of the torrent to come. Then he played the first chords of his controversial 1958 instrumental “Rumble” and the band kicked in with him. It was the loudest thing I had ever heard, and despite the aural attack, everyone in front of him was all smiles. Link blasted through a set that included songs from his diverse catalog, including tracks from his just-released abum Shadowman that had come out that January.
Photo by Justin Beahm
The set was magical, everything anyone could have hoped for, and it ended with an encore of “Rumble” again, along with “Ace of Spades” and “It’s So Easy.” As the sweaty crowd dispersed, Billy and I made our way to the stage to meet Link, just wanting to say hi and thank him for a great night. We encountered the legend in that tiny side room, and I introduced Billy as “Butch” to Link, who interrupted me, saying with a smile, “then you must be Sundance.” We laughed and talked about the night’s show, about how the tour, his first in a long time in the States, had been going, and he asked questions about us, our music, and about growing up in Iowa. I am still unsure how we got there, but eventually the talk turned to me being adopted, and Link perked up. Turns out he was also adopted, and he was excited to dive into our shared experience on that front.
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By the time he was needing to pack up and load out down the impossibly steep back stairs at Gabe’s, Link made me an offer I couldn’t refuse when he asked if I would be open to joining him before his gig the following day in Illinois to continue our conversation. He mentioned the next night’s venue was putting him and his wife Olive, who was on-stage all night with him playing tambourine, up in an apartment near where he was to play, and he would love to hang out.
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Needless to say, I was early to the address the following afternoon, and was delighted to spend the day with the two of them. Link and I got deep with our shared experience being adopted, which we agreed offered us something unique when it came to shaping who we were as people, and that allowed us something to dream about throughout our lives as we speculated about where we came from. Being adopted made us both take a unique ownership of our existence from early ages, and left us free to just be what we wanted to be.
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Olive made us sandwiches and the three of us had an amazing time discussing music, Denmark (where they lived at this point), and what a mess the music industry had become in the many years between his last studio album in the late 70s and his return albums in recent years. He sat strumming his battered Yamaha as we chatted, and shared the skeletel beginnings of some tunes he was working on for the next record, including one he sang called “Young and Beautiful” he said was about Olive. He showed me the aluminum Harley Davidson Stratocaster Olive had gifted him and noodled around on it, noting the unique resonance it had. We exchanged mailing addresses (Link said he didn’t believe in email), and it was agreed I would accompany them to the show that evening.
Photo by Justin Beahm
I carried Link’s guitars for him to the gig that night, which was at a much larger venue than Gabe’s in Iowa City. It was so exciting to walk in with him and Olive, and I got to watch the brief soundcheck, which was surprisingly understated considering the volume from the previous night. Then we parted ways so he could relax before the gig, and I took my post front and center at the foot of the stage. Link’s guitar rig on the second night was bigger than whe he had played through in Iowa, and I was surprised to see the sound person had a mic in front of his cabinet, knowing he certainly didn’t need such assistance in getting his message to the masses. After the opening band, and Dieselhed again, Link took the stage. As soon as he hit that first chord in “Rumble” that almost took everyone’s head off it was so loud, I saw the sound person sprint to the stage and pull his mic from in front of the cabinet. Clearly the soundcheck had been a little different than how Wray had planned to play, and it was a funny moment that kicked off an even longer setlist than the night before.
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He was cheesing to me the whole evening as I snapped pictures with my little camera. He was magnetic, majestic, and raw. It remains the loudest show I have ever seen, and the lineup of songs was wonderfully expansive, including Elvis and Steppenwolf covers, a song from when he teamed up with Robert Gordon, and some deep cuts from the early days. After the show I helped them load into the van and we hugged and parted ways, promising to write once he returned to Denmark.
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I assumed nothing would come of that, but surprisingly, in December of 1997 I got my first missive from him. It was addressed simply to “Sundance” at my address in Illinois, and the letter talked about how he had been thinking a lot about our conversations, particularly in reference to adoption, as he rounded out the remainder of his US gigs on the trip. He shared stories of how brutal the experience had been on him in the van, and how he wasn’t sure when he would return to the U.S.
I wrote back and we kept this going for a couple of years, writing back and forth every six months or so and just talking about life and whatever was on our minds. Very stream of consciousness. He implored me to search for my birth parents, and I acted on his nudge, which led, many years later, to me actually meeting the amazing woman who gave me life (another story for another day).
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While I never got another chance to see Link in person, the bond we formed will forever be precious to me, and when I finally picked up a guitar it was with Link on my mind. The song “Sundance (For Link)” on Shore Ghosts is my nod back to him, and I hope he somehow heard it wherever his soul is raising hell and terrifying sound engineers.
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When he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, I watched with the biggest smile on my face. It was validation for an artist largely lost to history, but that had an indelible impact on the sonic stratosphere. Seeing Jimmy Page playing “Rumble” on his double neck Gibson SG said it all. Link Wray wrote the book on modern rock guitar, and I will forever treasure the letters he sent and how he ultimately altered my trajectory in life in the little time we had together.
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Love to you, Link, wherever you are. Thank you.
