Link Wray - Guitar Preacher: The Polydor Years

OK, I'll take an easy way out with this review and just copy one from AMG.

Wray's image as leather-clad, fuzz-drenched cowpunk is so indelibly etched into the minds of most fans that it's been convenient to overlook the fact that in the early '70s, he eschewed grungy instrumentals for laid-back, homespun roots rock. He wrote lyrics and sang on these albums as well, some of which were recorded in a three-track studio built in a converted chicken coop on his family farm. Reflecting the pastoral, rural influence of the Band and other groups of the day, Link also largely abandoned his electric guitars for acoustic ones on some of the albums, though he returned to harder-rocking electric sounds by the middle of the 1970s. This double-CD box set collects 37 songs from five albums spanning 1971 to 1974. One of these LPs only surfaced in England (Beans and Fatback), and another was an odd effort by one Mordicai Jones on which Link played most of the instruments and wrote most of the material. The anthology rightfully emphasizes his self-titled 1971 comeback album, the best of these recordings, which has an enigmatic backwoods ambience and spiritual lyrics, and contains a couple tunes later covered by the Nevilles ("Fire and Brimstone" and "Fallin' Rain"). The later albums, some of which featured high-profile guests like Jerry Garcia and Tower of Power, had a more generic early-'70s AOR rock feel; not so on the Mordicai Jones tracks, though, on which rustic arrangements back Jones' vocals, which sound like a more subdued Robert Plant. As a whole, the work assembled here isn't nearly as important as Wray's instrumental recordings from the '50s and '60s — and Wray's wracked, tense vocals are something of an acquired taste — but it's rather intriguing stuff with little relationship to the rest of his catalog.


Link Wray - Guitar Preacher: The Polydor Years
REUP: both CDs on depositfiles
256 kbps, ~280mb altogether

from the record LINK WRAY
1. La De Da (Y. Verroca)
2. Take Me Home Jesus (Y. Verroca)
3. Juke Box Mama (Y. Verroca)
4. Rise And Fall Of Jimmy Stokes (Y. Verroca)
5. Fallin' Rain (Link Wray)
6. Fire And Brimstone (Link Wray)
7. Ice People (Link Wray)
8. God Out West (Y. Verroca)
9. Crowbar (Link Wray)
10. Black River Swamp (Link Wray)
11. Tail Dragger (Willie Dixon)

from the record BEANS AND FATBACK
12. Hobo Man (Y. Verroca / Link Wray)
13. I'm So Glad, I'm So Proud (Y. Verroca / Link Wray)
14. Georgia Pines (Traditional arr. Y. Verroca / Link Wray)
15. Water Boy (Y. Verroca / Link Wray)
16. Alabama Electric Circus (Y. Verroca / Link Wray)
17. Take My Hand (Precious Lord) (Traditional arr. Y. Verroca / Link Wray)

from the record MORDACAI JONES
18. Walkin' In The Arizona Sun (Y. Verroca / Link Wray)
19. Scorpio Woman (Y. Verroca / Link Wray)
20. All Because Of A Woman (Y. Verroca / Link Wray)
21. On The Run (Y. Verroca / Link Wray / Mordicai Jones)
22. Days Before Custer (Y. Verroca / Link Wray)

from the record BE WHAT YOU WANT TO
23. Be What You Want To (Link Wray)
24. All Cried Out (M Deborah and M Curtis)
25. Tucson, Arizona (Doug Wray)
26. River Bend (Link Wray)
27. You Walked By (Link Wray)
28. Walk Easy, Walk Slow (Link Wray)

from the record THE LINK WRAY RUMBLE
29. Morning (Link Wray)
30. It Was a Bad Scene (Link Wray)
31. Good Time Joe (Link Wray)
32. Walkin' Bulldog (Link Wray)
33. I Got To Ramble (Link Wray)
34. Backwoods Preacher Man (Tony Joe White)
35. She's That Kind Of Woman (Link Wray)
36. Super 88 (Mark T Jordan)
37. Rumble (Link Wray)