Dave Edmunds

All Music Guide:

Roots rockers are seldom as purist as Dave Edmunds. Throughout his career, he stayed true to '50s and '60s rock & roll -- for Edmunds, rock & roll history stopped somewhere in 1963, after the Beach Boys' first singles but before the Beatles' hits. After establishing himself as a hotshot lead guitarist in the blues-rockers Love Sculpture, he launched his solo career by painstakingly re-creating oldies in his own studio, usually recording every track by himself. Through all of his efforts, he learned how to uncannily replicate the sound of Sun, Chess, and Phil Spector records, which not only helped him garner several U.K. hits in the early '70s, but also led to successful production work with artists like the Flamin' Groovies and Brinsley Schwarz. In the late '70s, he hit the peak of his career when he teamed up with former Schwarz bassist Nick Lowe to form Rockpile. For several years, Edmunds recorded albums with Rockpile and toured relentlessly with the band, which resulted in a string of hit U.K. singles. After the group imploded in the early '80s, he slowly disappeared from the mainstream, even as he made his most commercial music with producer Jeff Lynne; Edmunds eventually retreated to cult status in the '90s.

Dave Edmunds never abandoned the music he discovered as a teenager in Cardiff, Wales. He learned to play guitar by playing with the Everly Brothers and Elvis Presley records, picking out leads by James Burton, Chet Atkins, and Scotty Moore. He was also fascinated by Phil Spector's records, as well as American blues and country. Edmunds began playing in various British blues bands in the early '60s, eventually forming Love Sculpture with bassist John Williams and drummer Bob Jones, who was later replaced by Terry Williams. Love Sculpture's gimmick was playing bluesy, psychedelicized version of classical songs, and their interpretation of Khachaturian's Sabre Dance became a British Top Five hit in 1968. Within a year, the group rode out its success and broke up.

Edmunds returned to his home in Wales and constructed the eight-track studio Rockfield in Monmouthshire, where he holed up and taught himself how to meticulously re-create the sounds of his favorite records. Many of these recordings were made entirely by Edmunds, usually with Williams assisting on bass. One of the first records released from the Rockfield sessions was actually one of the least indicative of his style, since it interpreted the source material instead of replicating it. Featuring his vocal piped in through a telephone line, Edmunds' revamped version of Smiley Lewis' "I Hear You Knockin'" became a fluke hit, reaching the Top Ten in both America and England, and he quickly followed it with the Rockpile LP, a collection of straightforward oldies covers that became a modest success. Over the next few years, he recorded the material that became his second album, Subtle as a Flying Mallet, as well as producing records by similar-minded rockers like Ducks Deluxe, the Flamin' Groovies, and Brinsley Schwarz.

During 1974, Edmunds made a brief appearance in the film Stardust and helped assemble the soundtrack. Also that year, he produced the Brinsleys' last record, New Favourites. During the recording, he struck up a friendship with bassist Nick Lowe, who over the next few years became his key collaborator. Lowe helped Edmunds move away from covers and into performing new songs, largely written by Lowe, that re-created the spirit of old rock & roll. Following the 1975 release of Subtle as a Flying Mallet -- it produced two Top Ten U.K. hits with "Baby I Love You" and "Born to Be With You" -- Edmunds began to rely on Lowe's original material and sought out newer songs in the same vein, as well as more obscure oldies. In return, Lowe joined Edmunds' touring band, Rockpile, which also featured drummer Terry Williams and guitarist Billy Bremner. The first record the pair worked on heavily together was 1977's Get It, which also was Edmunds' first record for Led Zeppelin's label, Swan Song.

Get It was well received, as was 1978's Tracks on Wax 4, the first album Edmunds recorded with Rockpile as his backing band. By that point, Rockpile were touring constantly, earning terrific reviews in the U.K. press, who grouped the band in with the burgeoning new wave movement largely because of their drunken, reckless energy. In 1979, the band entered the studio to simultaneously cut Edmunds' Repeat When Necessary and Lowe's Labour of Lust, and the sessions were captured on the BBC documentary Born Fighter. Both records were hits, with Repeat When Necessary generating the major British hit "Girls Talk," as well as the Top 20 "Queen of Hearts," which Juice Newton later replicated for her breakthrough success. Rockpile entered the studio in 1980 to record the group's first full-fledged album, Seconds of Pleasure. During the recording, tensions between Edmunds and Lowe began to surface, resulting in an album that failed to capture the band's live sound. Seconds of Pleasure was a moderate success, but the group disbanded following its supporting tour.

Twangin', Edmunds' first post-Rockpile album, appeared in 1981 and featured contributions from Williams and Bremner. The album was a minor hit, generating a hit cover of John Fogerty's "Almost Saturday Night." Edmunds signed with Columbia the following year, releasing D.E. 7th, another moderately successful record. With 1983's Information, Edmunds began working with producer Jeff Lynne, a former member of Electric Light Orchestra. Not surprisingly for a prog rock veteran, Lynne brought Edmunds a more measured sound, encouraging him to work with synthesizers and drum machines. While greeted with mixed reviews, Information was successful in the U.S., resulting in the hit "Slipping Away." The pair followed the same formula for 1984's Riff Raff, which was an unqualified bomb.

During the early '80s, Edmunds produced records for rockabilly revivalists the Stray Cats, and in 1984 he produced the Everly Brothers' comeback record, EB 84. As his solo career stalled in the wake of Riff Raff, Edmunds concentrated on production, working on several acclaimed records, including k.d. lang's debut, Angel with a Lariat, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds' breakthrough Tuff Enuff. He returned to his own career in 1987 with the live I Hear You Rockin', which was ignored. Three years later, he released Closer to the Flame, his first studio record in six years, to mixed reviews. That same year, he reunited with Nick Lowe to produce Lowe's Party of One. Rhino Records released the double-disc compilation Anthology in 1993, and the following year Edmunds returned with Plugged In, his first set of one-man band material since Subtle as a Flying Mallet. Plugged In was received with good reviews, and Edmunds supported the album with his first tour in several years.

Following this tour, Edmunds went into seclusion, popping up for an occasional live gig, then releasing two albums on the Internet in the new millennium: 2005's Hand Picked: Musical Fantasies and Alive & Pickin'. Toward the end of the decade, Edmunds showed up on Jools Holland's Hootenanny concerts as part of his semi-regular gigging.

Wikipedia:

David William "Dave" Edmunds (born 15 April 1944) is a Welsh singer, guitarist and record producer. Although he is primarily associated with pub rock and New Wave, and had numerous hits in the 1970s and early 1980s, his natural leaning has always been towards 1950s style rock and roll.

Career [edit]

Early bands [edit]

Edmunds was born in Cardiff. As a teenager, he first played in 1954 with a band called The Edmunds Bros Duo with his older brother Geoff (born in 1940, Cardiff); this was a piano duo. Then the brothers were in The Stompers later called The Heartbeats formed in c 1957 with Geoff on rhythm guitar; Dave on lead guitar; Denny Driscoll on lead vocals; Johnny Stark on drums and Ton Edwards on bass. Then Dave and Geoff were in The 99ers along with scientist and writer Brian J. Ford. After that Dave Edmunds was in Crick Feather's Hill-Bill's formed in c 1960, with Feathers (Edmunds) on lead guitar; Zee Dolan on bass; Tennessee Tony on lead vocals; Tony Kees on piano and Hank Two Sticks on drums. The first group that Edmunds fronted was the Cardiff-based 1950s style rockabilly trio The Raiders formed in 1961, along with Brian 'Rockhouse' Davies on bass and Ken Collier on drums. Edmunds was the only constant member of the group, which later included bassist Mick Still, Bob 'Congo' Jones on drums and John Williams (stage name John David) on bass. The Raiders worked almost exclusively in the South Wales area.

In 1966, after a short spell in Parlophone recording band The Image (1965–1966), with local drummer Tommy Riley, Edmunds shifted to a more blues-rock sound, reuniting with Congo Jones and bassist John Williams and adding second guitarist Mickey Gee to form the short lived Human Beans, a band that played mostly in London and on the UK university circuit. In 1967, the band recorded a cover of "Morning Dew" on the Columbia label, that failed to have any chart impact. After just eighteen months, the core of 'Human Beans' formed a new band called Love Sculpture that again reinstated Edmunds, Jones and Williams as a trio. Love Sculpture scored a quasi-novelty Top 5 hit by reworking Khachaturian's classical piece "Sabre Dance" as a speed-crazed rock number, inspired by Keith Emerson's classical rearrangements. "Sabre Dance" became a hit after garnering the enthusiastic attention of British DJ John Peel. The band issued two albums.

Solo career [edit]

After Love Sculpture split, Edmunds had a UK Christmas Number 1 single in 1970 with "I Hear You Knocking", a Smiley Lewis cover, which he came across while producing Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets' first album entitled A Legend. The recording was the first release on Edmunds' manager's MAM Records label. This single also reached #4 in the US, making it Edmunds' biggest hit by far on either side of the Pond. It sold over three million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Edmunds had intended to record Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together", but when he was beaten to that song by Canned Heat, he adapted the arrangement he intended to use for it to "I Hear You Knocking", producing a highly original remake. Unfortunately, the success of the single caused EMI's Regal Zonophone Records to use an option that it had to claim Edmunds' album, 1972's Rockpile, and the momentum from the single's success on a different label went away.

Edmunds' only acting role followed, as a band member in the David Essex movie, Stardust. After learning the trade of producer, culminating in a couple of singles in the style of Phil Spector, "Baby I Love You" and "Born to Be with You", he became linked with the pub rock movement of the early 1970s, producing Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe, and also The Flamin' Groovies, using a stripped down, grittier sound. Edmunds had bought a house in Rockfield, Monmouth a few miles away from Charles and Kingsley Ward's Rockfield Studios where he became an almost permanent fixture for the next twenty years. His working regime involved arriving at the studio in the early evening and working through till well after dawn, usually locked in the building alone. Applying the layered Spector sound to his own productions it was not unusual for Edmunds to multilayer up to forty separately recorded guitar tracks into the mix.

Rockpile and other collaborations [edit]

His own solo LP from 1975, Subtle as a Flying Mallet, was similar in style. The Brinsley Schwarz connection brought about a collaboration with Nick Lowe starting with this album, and in 1976 they formed the group Rockpile, with Billy Bremner and Terry Williams. Because Edmunds and Lowe signed to different record labels that year, they could not record as Rockpile until 1980, but many of their solo LPs (such as Lowe's Labour of Lust and Edmunds' own Repeat When Necessary) were group recordings. Edmunds had more UK hits during this time, including Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk", Nick Lowe's "I Knew The Bride", Hank DeVito's "Queen of Hearts" (written for Edmunds and later a US hit for Juice Newton using the same arrangement), Graham Parker's "Crawling from the Wreckage", and Melvin Endsley's "Singing the Blues" (originally a 1956 US #1 hit for Guy Mitchell, and a UK #1 for both Mitchell and Tommy Steele).

Unexpectedly, after Rockpile released their first LP under their own name, Seconds of Pleasure (1980), the band split, generally attributed to tensions not between Edmunds and Lowe but between their respective managers. Edmunds and the band, including Lowe, performed in a music video for the track "Girls Talk," directed by Martin Pitts and produced by Derek Burbidge and Helen Pollack. For the video, the band set up on the roof of the Warner Brothers Records building in Midtown Manhattan in the early afternoon, causing a stir in offices in Rockefeller Center. Edmunds spent the 1980s collaborating with and producing an assortment of artists, from Paul McCartney to King Kurt, and from Stray Cats and Fabulous Thunderbirds to Status Quo. He recorded the soundtrack for Porky's Revenge!, supplying the main theme, "High School Nights," and was the musical director for a television special starring Carl Perkins, with assorted guests including George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Rosanne Cash.

On his 1983 release, Information, Edmunds collaborated on two songs with Jeff Lynne, the leader of Electric Light Orchestra. One of these songs, a Lynne composition, "Slipping Away", became Edmunds' only other US Top 40 hit, albeit just barely, spending a single week at #39 while having a video clip in heavy rotation on MTV. It was not a hit in the UK. In 1984, Lynne produced six tracks on Edmunds' following album, Riff Raff.

In 1986, Dave Edmunds participated in Carl Perkins's Rockabilly Session television special to pay tribute to his hero. Other musicians involved in the project include George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Eric Clapton.

1990 Onwards [edit]

Edmunds recorded less frequently after the mid 1980s, living in Wales in semi-retirement, but occasionally touring. He joined up with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band for tours in 1992 and 2000. However, 2007 marked a return to touring for Edmunds, alongside Joe Brown, on a lengthy tour around the UK. He made an appearance on stage alongside Stray Cats, at the Brixton Academy in London, on 10 September 2008, playing "The Race Is On" and "Tear It Up" with the band.

In 1993 Edmunds unexpectedly found himself in Cardiff Crown Court as a co-defendant along with Shakin' Stevens facing charges of non-payment of playing royalties from former Sunsets' band members Robert Llewellyn, Carl Petersen, Steve Percy and Paul Dolan. The prosecution asserted that the former band members were due a share of those additional royalties that Stevens and Edmunds had received from the successful reissue of the album A Legend during the early eighties. The judge agreed and, while the unpaid royalties only amounted to around £70,000 to be divided between the four musicians, the associated court costs to be paid by Stevens and Edmunds amounted to £500,000.

On New Year's Eve 2008, he appeared on Jools Holland's annual Hootenanny, performing "Girls Talk" and "I Hear You Knocking". He was Holland's guest again at Borde Hill Garden on 20 June 2009, on 28 August at open air concert at Carrickfergus Castle., 31 October at Ipswich Regent, 7 November at Stoke Victoria Hall and 14 November at Nottingham Concert Hall. Edmunds also played a five song set, including "I Hear You Knocking," "I Knew the Bride" and "Sabre Dance" with the Holland Big Band at the Royal Albert Hall on 27 November 2009.

He returned and performed Sabre Dance on Hootenanny on the 2009/10 edition.

Selected discography [edit]

Singles [edit]

Studio albums [edit]

with Love Sculpture:

with Brewers Droop:

as Dave Edmunds:

with Rockpile:

as Dave Edmunds:

Live albums [edit]

Compilations [edit]

with Love Sculpture:

as Dave Edmunds:

Music videos [edit]