“Rumble” by Link Wray

"Rumble" was born on a stage in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in early 1958, when Link Wray & His Ray Men were fumbling for something to play behind the Diamonds' "The Stroll" and hit on something far meaner, which they first called "Oddball". The crowd made them play it four more times, and the night's host, disc jockey Milt Grant, paid to have it recorded in Washington, D.C., and released, earning a songwriting credit.

To make the record snarl like the live version, Wray jabbed a pencil through his amp's speaker cone, and Cadence Records producer Archie Bleyer hated it all the more. Out as a single on March 31, 1958, it was all distortion, power chords and tremolo when rock and roll had barely touched any of them. It entered the National Recording Registry in 2008 and, a decade later, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's new category for singles.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.