Link Way is on Bishopdown, to the north of Salisbury city centre.
It’s an odd name for the road, because it’s basically a cul-de-sac. It doesn’t really link anything. It could be that at some stage in the past it did link two roads.
Link Wray
Whenever I see the road or hear it’s name I can’t help but be reminded of Link Wray, who was a great rockabilly guitarist. He sadly died a couple of years ago.
Most of Link Wray’s work was instrumental. His best known track was ‘Rumble’ which was on the soundtrack of the film Pulp Fiction, although not on the CD. I would guess that if you like the other guitar instrumental from Pulp Fiction, Dick Dale’s ‘Miserlou’, you would probably like ‘Rumble’.
Image from Amazon
Famously ‘Rumble’ was banned by some radio stations[1], because it was thought that it would incite gang violence. I’ve always thought that this may have been a story put about to generate publicity for the record – perhaps I’m overly cynical. Anyway a ‘Rumble’ in the context of 1950s gangs meant a fight[2], but also the atmosphere of the song is, to quote I think Dave Marsh, “the musical equivalent of football’s forearm shiver’[3]
At the time of writing there are performances of Rumble on Youtube here:
And other Link Wray tunes here:
Link also added the atmospheric guitar parts to Terry Jack’s version of a Jacques Brel song, ‘Seasons in the Sun’ which reached Number One in the UK in the early 1970s:
Wray was a big influence on bands such as the Jesus and Mary Chain, the White Stripes and Poison Ivy from the Cramps.
Link Wray obviously has nothing at all to do with Link Way. However, I can’t help faintly hearing the chords of ‘Rumble’ whenever I’m there.
Footnotes
- The Pop History Dig » “Rumble” Riles Censors 1958 -1959 [↩]
- WordNet Search – 3.0 [↩]
- The Heart of Rock and Soul, Dave Marsh, page 306 in the Penguin Original edition [↩]