Early Life
Wray was born in Dunn, North Carolina to Fred Lincoln Wray and his wife Lillian M. Coats. Link first heard the slide guitar technique at age eight from a traveling carnival worker nicknamed "Hambone." Link's family moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where his father worked in the U. S. Navy shipyards during World War II. Link met his first wife, Elizabeth and married in 1953, had the first daughter, Beth July of 1954 then the family moved to Washington, D.C. August 1954, and in February 1959 Link's son Link 3rd was born, finally to a farm in Accokeek, Maryland. Link Wray and his brother Vernon went west to Arizona early 1970s, settling in San Francisco several years later.
Wray served in the US Army during the Korean War, and contracted tuberculosis that eventually cost him a lung. The doctors said he would never be able to sing again, so he concentrated on guitar work. Nevertheless, on his vocal numbers he displays a strong voice and a range equal to that of Clarence "Frogman" Henry.
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