Instrumentally Yours: Rumble

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What a lovely Saturday! As is typical in November, it’ll be followed by a much cooler Sunday. The change of the seasons, which usually means there’s something for everyone…for, oh, three or four hours. Speaking of “something for everyone,” here’s another instrumental that may or may not strike your fancy. Rumble - Link Wray and His Ray-Men This song is historical. It is the ONLY instrumental in the history of American radio, recorded music, and the FCC to be banned. Yes, banned, as in “don’t play that.” George Carlin had seven words, Link Wray used seven notes. Just to put your mind (slightly) at ease, politicians have always used scare tactics. The thing about scare tactics is that they work until they don’t (sorry to sound like Yogi Berra there), but by the time they don’t people have moved on to a new scare tactic. In the 1950s, you had McCarthyism. Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy started warning people that there were communists everywhere in America. DUH. The US Communist Party started in 1919. However, McCarthy also had the backdrop of the arms race and Cold War to help advance his fear tactics. By the time his witch hunt was ended in 1954 a new one started: the advent of rock and roll. This, too, was evil, according to the southern clergy (as The Police once said, “Poets, priests, and politicians have words to thank for their positions”). The “rise in juvenile delinquency” (which has been around since the 4th chapter of Genesis in the Bible) made people more afraid of Elvis and Bill Haley and the like. So when a song came along named “Rumble,” which was reported to be “street talk” for inciting a riot, radio stations refused to play it. Ha, it still made the Billboard top 20. People today who are used to every-other-word-being-the-F-word songs really don’t comprehend the struggles that rock and roll had to overcome to “arrive.” This song was an important part of the battle. Rumble Written by Milt Grant and Link Wray Recorded by Link Wray and His Ray-Men Released as a single, 1958 Let’s get ready to rumble!!!!!