Link Wray, R.I.P.

The foreign press is reporting the death of guitar legend Link Wray at the age of 76. (The actual date of death is still unknown.) Wray always claimed that, because he was delivered with "prongs" (wouldn't forceps have been bad enough?), he found learning to play the guitar very slow and difficult. You could never tell it by listening to him burn away on records like "Rumble" (which he claimed got its growling sound by holes he punched in his amp), and ax-men like Pete Townsend, Frank Zappa and Neil Young have all testified to his greatness. He moved to Denmark in 1978, but after his music was featured in Pulp Fiction, his stateside career was revitalized, and he even toured the U.S. earlier this year. Somewhere, they're playing a 21-power-chord salute in his honor.