Dave Edmunds

Dave Edmunds

Dave Edmunds (born 15 April, 1944 in Cardiff, Wales) is a British singer, guitarist and record producer. Although he was primarily associated with pub rock and New Wave, and had numerous popular hits in the 1970s and early 1980s, his natural leaning has always been towards 1950s style rock and roll music from the pre-Beatles era.

Career

Early Days

As a young teenager Edmunds played with a band called the 99ers and in the 'Heartbeats' with his older brother Geoff . The first group that he fronted was the Cardiff based 1950s style rockabilly trio 'The Raiders', along with Bob 'Congo' Jones on drums and John Williams on bass, that worked almost exclusively in the South Wales area. In the late 1960s, the band shifted to a more blues-rock sound and renamed as the short lived 'The Human Beans', playing mostly in London and on the British University circuit. In 1967 the band recorded a cover of "Morning Dew" on the Columbia label that failed to have any chart impact. Soon after the remnants of Human Beans formed a new band called Love Sculpture that again reunited Edmunds, Jones and Williams as a trio, who scored a quasi-novelty 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.

A solo career

After Love Sculpture split, Edmunds had a UK #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 U.S., making it Edmunds' biggest hit by far on either side of the Pond. 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

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 Nick Lowe's Labour of Lust and Edmunds' own Repeat When Necessary) were in fact group recordings. Dave 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 but later a smash U.S. hit for Juice Newton), Graham Parker's "Crawling from the Wreckage", and Melvin Endsley's "Singing the Blues" (originally a hit for Guy Mitchell).

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 their respective managers. Edmunds spent the 1980s collaborating with and producing an assortment of artists, from Paul McCartney to King Kurt, and from The Stray Cats 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 Jeff Lynne composition entitled "Slipping Away," became Edmunds's only other U.S. Top 40 hit, albeit just barely, spending a single week at #39. It was not a hit in the UK. In 1984, Jeff Lynne produced six tracks on Edmunds's following album, Riff Raff.

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

Recent Events

Edmunds recorded less frequently after the mid 1980s, living in Wales in semi-retirement, and touring Scandinavia infrequently after surviving a quadruple bypass. However, 2007 marked a return to touring for Edmunds, alongside fellow rock protagonist Joe Brown on a lengthy jaunt around the UK.

Selected Discography

Singles

as Love Sculpture:

• "Sabre Dance" (1968) UK #5

as Dave Edmunds:

• "I Hear You Knocking" (Dave Edmunds' Rockpile) (1970) UK #1, US #4
• "Baby I Love You" (1973) UK #8
• "Born To Be With You" (1973) UK #5
• "I Knew The Bride" (1977) UK #26
• "Girls Talk" (1979) UK #4
• "Queen Of Hearts" (1979) UK #11
• "Crawling From The Wreckage" (1979) UK #59
• "Singing The Blues" (1980) UK #28
• "Almost Saturday Night" (1981) UK #58
• "The Race Is On" (with The Stray Cats) (1981) UK #34
• "Slipping Away" (1983) UK #60, US #39
• "King Of Love" (1990) UK #68

Albums

as Love Sculpture:

• Blues Helping (December 1968)
• Forms and Feelings (January 1970)

as Dave Edmunds:

• Rockpile (June 1972)
• Subtle as a Flying Mallet (April 1975)
• Get It (April 1977)
• Tracks on Wax 4 (September 1978)
• Repeat When Necessary (June 1979) (UK #39)

as Rockpile:

• Seconds of Pleasure (October 1980)

as Dave Edmunds:

• Twangin... (April 1981) (UK #37)
• D.E. 7th (March 1982) (UK #60)
• Information (April 1983) (UK #92)
• Riff Raff (September 1984)
• I Hear You Rocking (June 1987)
• Closer to the Flame (April 1990)
• The Best of Dave Edmunds (March 1991)
• The Anthology: 1968-1990 (April 1993)
• Plugged In (August 1994)
• Hand Picked: Musical Fantasies (January 2000)
• A Pile of Rock: Live (September 2001)
• From Small Things: The Best of Dave Edmunds (April 2004)
• Alive and Pickin' (February 2005)

as Guest Musician:

• Give My Regards to Broad Street [Paul McCartney] (1984)

External links

• Listen to Dave Edmunds Live at Roseland Ballroom on June 19, 1983