Postby Deke Dickerson » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:50 pm
Here's the story on Link Wray's Danelectro, I've had a few of you ask me since I alluded to it earlier.... reference the photo of it earlier in this thread.
A couple of years ago a guy named Fred White started emailing people saying he had Link's Danelectro. He had traded some jazz records to Bobby Howard in 1962 for the guitar. Bobby Howard (aka "The Kid") was 2nd guitarist in link's band from about 1959-1963. I heard about it from the guy Greg Laxton who does the Link Wray "3 Track Shack" website, which is a great website to visit if you dig Link.
Fred put the guitar on ebay but didn't list it very well--for instance, he said it was the guitar on "Rumble" even though it's pretty easy to find out that "Rumble" was done with a Les Paul. Still, the story of how he got the guitar seemed plausible. The guitar was in REALLY bad shape with a shaky neck pocket, broken pots, messed up bridge, etc. I took the bait and won the guitar on ebay for $1000.
Steve Soest (who played in the All-Mosrite band) fixed the shaky neck pocket and while he was fixing the bridge he found two old matchbook covers underneath it as shims. Both were really old. One was from a bank in Fairfax, Virginia near D.C. and the other was from a pizza parlor in La Crosse, Wisconsin! There is evidence that Link toured in Wisconsin in 1958 with the Kalin Twins on a package tour. Circumstantial evidence #1--who else besides Link would have been in Virginia and Wisconsin in this time period?
Circumstantial evidence #2--Steve Soest is a Danelectro expert (he was the main advisor to the dano company when they did the reissues), and says the guitar's serial number is a 1958, the first year they were made. he also went further to state that Guitarlins are so rare, he estimates less than 200 were ever made between 1958 and 1969. By his reckoning, the fact that it was a 1958 Guitarlin (we know Link's was a first year '58 because it was on the cover of his '58 Epic LP) and that it surfaced in the DC area where Link lived makes it extremely likely to be Link's just by that evidence alone.
Circumstantial evidence #3--Fred White said he got the guitar from Rayman Bobby Howard in 1962. There are a bunch of photos of Link playing the Danelectro from 1958 until about 1960, then he switched to a Supro Dual-Tone. From the 1961-1962 time period, there are two photos that show Bobby Howard playing a Danelectro Guitarlin! (These photos can be seen in the liner notes to the Norton "Missing Links" CD's.)
Circumstantial evidence #4--I met Sharon Wray, Link's wife in the 1950's and early 60's, at a Link Wray tribute in D.C. in January 2007. I asked her if she knew anything about the guitar, and she said she remembered Link giving the Danelectro guitar to Bobby Howard.
Circumstantial evidence #5--If you look at the "appliance-burst" finish on the guitar, you can see a slight "hump" in the finish on the upper bout of the body. Just an ever so slight bit where the gold mist gets thicker in one place. I've been taking pictures of every Longhorn I see from that era, guitars, basses, and 6-string basses, and I've never seen another one with this little "hump." If you look at the 1958 Epic promotional photo of Link, the one they also used on the cover of his Epic LP, you can see the "hump" as plain as day.
Circumstantial evidence #6--this guitar is trashed!!! The headstock has been broken and reglued. It has been ABUSED. If this guitar was mint and somebody was telling me it belonged to Link Wray, I wouldn't believe it. But the fact that it is so beat up makes it very believable that Link, the king of the bad-boy rockers of the 1950's, owned it.
the "missing Link" to use a bad pun in this is Bobby Howard. he is still alive but very much a recluse. I've tried a few avenues to get in touch with him but even his own SON cannot get through to the guy. If Bobby Howard would confirm that Link gave him the guitar and then he traded it to Fred White a few years later, that would prove everything, until then it's all circumstantial evidence. But I believe, in all circumstantial cases, that the evidence is pretty darn strong!!!!
Deke
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Quite a contrast to the little kid bouncing around on stage with his sister, back in the day, isn't it? 
