STUDIO CLASSICIST: DAVE EDMUNDS

You’ve gotta hand it to Dave Edmunds —he knows what he likes. His sound is a little old-fashioned rockabilly, a little country twang, a little Everly Brothers pop and some high-octane blues, all combined and thrown through some echo and reverb if not subjected to a full Spectorsound mix. The resulting style is easily recognizable as Edmunds’ own, if for no other reason than the fact that his music has sounded the same for well over a decade now. It is a sound that’s as timeless as its obvious roots.

Edmunds wasn’t always such a purist. He first achieved notoriety in 1967 as the guitarist for Love Sculpture, and more specifically as the maniac whose amphetamine-crazed 11-minute arrangement of classical composer Khachaturian’s famed “Sabre Dance” left Alvin Lee’s “I’m Going Home” opus standing in the dust. (It also pointed out an irreverent approach to classical rock that the E.L.P./Yes brigades of a few years later largely ignored or bungled.) Love Sculpture’s Forms And Feelings album also featured disfigurings of other classical pieces by Holst and Bizet and some largely undistinguished progressive rock, such that the real Dave Edmunds surfaces only on a breakneck version of Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me” (and the band’s other, more rootsoriented Blues Helping LP).

When Love Sculpture folded after a short American tour Edmunds retreated to his own Rockfield studio in Monmouthshire, Wales, to perfect the combination of guitar and studio expertise that has been his signature ever since. (It’s worth noting that one of the songs on Edmunds’ most recent album Twangin’ was recorded during this period, and yet it sounds perfectly at home among his more contemporary recordings.) In 1970 he remade Smiley Lewis’s old blues tune “I Hear You Knockin’” as his first solo single and earned a three-million selling hit. Over the next few years he contented himself with releasing infrequent but critically-admired solo albums, recording some songs for the soundtrack of the movie Stardust, and producing groups such as the Flamin’ Groovies, Foghat, and Brinsley Schwarz.

It was in the latter group that Edmunds found bassist/songwriter Nick Lowe, and the two soon clicked in a musical partnership that proved beneficial to both—Lowe could take advantage of Edmund’s considerable skills on his own solo albums, and Edmunds got a shot in the arm from Lowe’s songwriting abilities and all-around pop flair. Some of the earliest fruits of this collaboration appeared on Edmund’s 1977 release Get It, including the utterly classic, Lowe-penned “I Knew The Bride.”

From all reports the pair’s mutual love of the Everly Brothers (they went so far as to record a tribute EP together) was matched only by their mutual love of alcohol, and by 1978 their drinking circle had expanded to include guitarist Billy Bremner and drummer Terry Williams—the four acting as the creative force behind subsequent Edmunds and Lowe LPs under the name Rockpile. An invitation from friend and admirer Elvis Costello led to them sharing an American tour with him, where they sounded for all the world like the ideal garage band they were at heart—drunk, simple, and yet gutsy as hell.

Heavy touring followed, and Rockpile blossomed into a first-rate live band, as befits the talents of the individuals involved. Despite this, however, the band led a strange double life, touring under their own name yet releasing albums alternately under that of Edmunds or Lowe. This schizophrenic situation wasn’t resolved until the release of the first Rockpile album Seconds Of Pleasure last year. The album was a commercial success, but unfortunately it had little of the flair of previous releases, and the internal stresses involved in its recording make it seem unlikely that we’ll ever see another Rockpile album per se.

Much of Edmunds’ early material is npw available only on imported compilation sets, but in view of his resistance to faddish change (it’s safe to say that his music is popular now because the public’s taste has swung back to what he has been doing all along), if you like his new stuff you’ll like his old stuff, too. Especially recommended for the hard core is the A Bunch Of Stiffs sampler from Stiff Records that has an ear-wrenching, echo-happy version of Chuck Berry’s “Jo Jo Gunne” that is Dave Edmunds at his rocking best.