[a fool in paradise]

First one to make an international mark, maybe.

Link Wray had played up distortion (and Paul Burlison in the Johnny Burnette Trio before that; and noted by the Yardbirds in their cover of the JBT’s cover of Train Kept A Rollin’).

By the early 60s, the Sonics were howling up in Tacoma Washington.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-sonics-mn0000428717/biography

In 1964, Buck Ormsby, who played bass with Northwest heroes the Wailers, was impressed with the Sonics’ new lineup and became their manager, as well as signing them to Etiquette Records, a local label he helped run. For their first single, the band took one of their few original tunes and changed it from a number about a proposed dance craze into a cautionary tale about a treacherous female; the results, “The Witch,” had a dark, sinister undercurrent and between Parypa’s guitar, Bennett’s drumming, and Roslie’s vocals, it was louder and crazier sounding than anything else a Northwest band had committed to tape. Backed with a manic cover of Little Richard’s “Keep A’Knockin’,” the single was too much for many local radio stations, but eventually it broke through in enough smaller markets that the record became a major hit in the Northwest; enough so that rather than continue to pay publishing royalties to Little Richard for the B-side, the band recorded another original, “Psycho,” that soon turned the 45 into a two-sided hit.

The Witch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVWAE6n_G4Q

[Boogieman]

Haha, I just posted to point out Link Wray myself, but you beat me to it.

[Fiji Hill]

As far as I know, this is the original recording.

The Train Kept a-Rollin'--Tiny Bradshaw (1951)