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Guitar innovator Link Wray dies at 76

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Guitar master Link Wray, the father of the power chord in rock 'n' roll who inspired such legends as Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie and Pete Townshend, has died. He was 76.

Mr. Wray died Nov. 5 at his home in Copenhagen, his wife and son said on his Web site. No cause of death was given, but his family said his heart was "getting tired." He was buried Friday after a service at Copenhagen's Christian Church.

"While playing his guitar he often told the audience, "God is playing my guitar, I am with God when I play,"' his wife, Olive, and son, Oliver Christian, wrote. "We saw you go with God, you were smiling."

Mr. Wray, who played in his trademark leather jacket, developed a style considered the blueprint for heavy metal and punk music. He is best known for his 1958 instrumental Rumble, 1959's Rawhide and 1963's Jack the Ripper. His music has been featured in movies including Pulp Fiction, Independence Day and Desperado.

Mr. Wray, who was born in North Carolina and is three-quarters Shawnee Indian, is said to have inspired many other rock musicians, including Townshend, of the Who; Springsteen; Bowie; Bob Dylan; and Steve Van Zandt. All have been quoted as saying that Wray and Rumble inspired them to become musicians.

"He is the king; if it hadn't been for Link Wray and Rumble, I would have never picked up a guitar," Townshend wrote on one of Mr. Wray's albums. Neil Young once said: "If I could go back in time and see any band, it would be Link Wray and the Raymen."

The power chord - a thundering sound created by playing fifths (two notes five notes apart, often with the lower note doubled an octave above) - became a favorite among rock players. Mr. Wray claimed that because he was too slow to be a whiz on the guitar, he had to invent sounds.

When recording Rumble, he created the fuzz tone by punching holes in his amplifiers to produce a dark, grumbling sound. It took off instantly, but it was banned by some deejays in big cities for seeming to suggest teen violence.

"I was looking for something that Chet Atkins wasn't doing, that all the jazz kings wasn't doing, that all the country pickers wasn't doing. I was looking for my own sound," Mr. Wray said in 2002.

He was born Frederick Lincoln Wray Jr. in 1929 in Dunn, N.C. His two brothers, Vernon and Doug, were also musicians. The three became a country hit as Lucky Wray and the Palomino Ranch Hands. Later, after Rumble, they became Link Wray and the Raymen, or Wraymen, as it was sometimes spelled. Later, the brothers' relationship soured after a dispute about the rights to Rumble.

In 1978, he moved to Denmark and married Olive Julie Povlsen. They raised their son in a three-story house on an island where Hans Christian Andersen once lived.

Though he went out of style in the '60s, he was rediscovered by later generations. He toured the United States and Canada since the mid 1990s, playing 40 shows this year. In 2002, Guitar World magazine chose Mr. Wray as one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

[Last modified November 22, 2005, 02:15:27]