PROGRAM #4
Rebels
with
Guitars
IN AN ERA WHEN AMERICA was tuning into Patti Page and Mitch Miller, rockabilly was a bold, young upstart, like Hollywood star James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. On this program, we’ll examine how music reflected the restless youth culture of the Fifties that was portrayed in films and literature, and profile several rockabilly artists for whom rebellion was part of their personas. The Burnette Brothers, Johnny and Dorsey, pursued careers in the boxing ring in Memphis before taking up music. We’ll meet guitarist Link Wray, the pioneer of the power chord who had a leather-clad look of a motorcycle gang that was every parent’s nightmare. Gene Vincent, perhaps the best known of the rockabilly rebels, had a big hit song with “Be-Bop-A-Lula.”
Link Wray (bottom left), a guitarist known for his titanic power chords and adding distortion to early rock ’n roll, recorded his signature hit, “Rumble,” in 1958. A Native American who was a member of the Shawnee People, Wray grew up in poverty in North Carolina, where he faced discrimination and often violence from the Ku Klux Klan for his indigenous heritage. His band, Link Wray & His Ray Men, cultivated a rebel attitude that was an early inspiration for Punk Rock. Fearing gang violence, several cities banned them after the release of “Rumble.” (Publicity photo, 1964)
