Country: US
Artist: Male solo artist
Career: recording since 1958
Language: English / Instrumental
Genre: Rock&Roll
How do we deal with veteran records as listeners? The grizzled old folks who started it all are out there releasing record after record, in an approximation of their original sound. Some get back into the public eye or never leave it (Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan), many more keep going, somewhere under the radar, and twice yearly in a town near where you live. Are we supposed to listen to their records? Have they done enough for us, that they deserve this reprieve while we ignore their new work? Is it even possible for them to create anything worthwhile inside the tradition they helped create once?
There’s two opinions, I’ve found. One is that an artist at some point creates the perfect embodiment of his ideas (‘Like a rolling stone’, ‘I walk the line’, ‘Rumble’, ‘Rudolph the red-nosed reggae’) and everything after is an uninteresting pale retreat. The other is that if we like an artist at one stop in his journey, we might enjoy seeing where inspiration takes him, even if the path leads through valleys and meadows. There’s no need to compare ‘Like a rolling stone’ to ‘Cold irons bound’ (to name just one track from ‘Time out of mind’), they can exist side by side very well. Philosophically, it’s either option A (talent gets used up) or option B (talent gets used/abused). You’ve probably guessed that I’m in the second group, and so old people are generously represented in this list.
Which brings us to Link Wray and this record. The tag line ‘newly recorded cd’ on the back cover is relative, none of this music is less than 3 years old, most is from 1995. Five years more or less, what does it matter in the life of a veteran? It’s a mess basically, roughly half of it from a session with his Danish rock quartet, five songs from an acoustic session with a bass player, two live tracks tacked at the end. Not the conditions to find greatness. And for the first nine songs, that’s where it stays. It veers back and forth between the rocking tracks and the acoustic songs – versions of riffs he’s done before and covers (‘Barbed wire’, ‘Tiger man’, ‘Jailhouse rock’, ‘Young and beautiful’…). (Side note: Link is not a great singer, he never was, he isn’t in 2000. I kinda like his singing, and you sort of listen around it. If you can’t, fair do). The more I listen to these first nine songs, the more I find to like in them. I enjoy it a lot, but there’s no way around it’s a nice stop through one of the valleys for Link Wray.
But the tables turn on the last 20 minutes and four tracks (all of the high points below). Nothing, and I mean nothing, from 2000 rocks as hard as these 20 minutes. ‘Spider Man’ is just the most groovy introduction to the rocking, but even here the instrumental part starting at about 1’45” is noise and madness and rockin’ groove. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always wanted to hear what would happen if a ‘50s rocker embraced ‘80s guitar noise, or if a recent guitar attack band could rock with the authority of a ‘50s master. I’ve found my answer. It doesn’t let up – and it doesn’t matter these are the umpteenth versions of these songs that Link or anyone has done. He’s blazing through them, rewiring them from the inside out, spitting out the verses to get them out of the way and get into the instrumental sections. There’s nothing like ‘Born to be wild’ on any other record from 2000 or most other years. This ain’t no valley. It’s either high up on a mountain range, or subterranean – and either way it’s a sight to hear. He’s using it like he’s trying to use it up.
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