It felt good. It being yesterday, Friday. The weekend was coming. I hadn't heard Dave Edmund's Everlys-sounding "Here Comes the Weekend" in a long while, so I went on a hunt and fell smack dab into a black hole. A Dave Edmunds black hole. He's done so much over the years without any sort of radical changes to his style that it doesn't seem like that long ago that he had a hit on AM radio in the U.S., but it was way back in 1970. It's hard to imagine that a cover of Smiley Lewis's "I Hear You Knockin'" would be a hit in the U.S., even more remarkable when you consider the fact that he was all but unknown stateside before that.
Dave Edmunds has never really been flashy, never a huge mega-rock star. But he was consistent, had a long career and he never hid his fascination with American roots music. Back in the day my brother had an LP by Love Sculpture, the first band that Edmunds had recorded with. My brother was going through a Bluesbreakers fueled diversion into British blues and Love Sculpture, he reckoned, was kicking it up a notch. He played the shit out of that album.
Fast forward a few years later, I read a review of Edmunds's Git It, his second solo LP, and it mentioned that there was some rockabilly on it. This was the first time I'd ever heard rockabilly mentioned in a review of a current LP. Unlike Britain, when rockabilly died in the U.S., there were no teddy boys fanning the flame. With the exception of Rollin' Rock Records, which I didn't know about at the time, rockabilly in the U.S. was pretty much kaput. So, I bit. That LP, or cassette in my case, was in my Walkman knock-off for a solid week while walking the mile and a half each way to work. It had a bit of everything. Covers of songs by Arthur Crudup ("My Baby Left Me"), Hank Williams ("Hey Good Lookin'") Otis Blackwell ("Let's Talk About Us") and an early Bob Seeger ("Get Out of Denver"), not to mention a version of Rogers/Hart's show tune "Where or When" that sounds like he's attempting a Beach Boys approach. And that's not counting the new songs, some written by Edmunds, some co-written with Nick Lowe, two by Lowe alone and one by Graham Parker. The affiliation was one just beyond the outskirts of pub rock. One of the songs, "I Knew the Bride", is the definitive version, better than Lowe's own version recorded a year or so later. That's just one LP. There's fourteen more. That's why you got the bell bottom boys yesterday. I'm still not through.
~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:Dave Edmunds - I Hear You Knockin' mp3 at Tumblr
Love Sculpture - Wang Dang Doodle (streaming) at YouTube
Dave Edmunds - Here Comes the Weekend (streaming) at YouTube
Dave Edmunds - Get Out of Denver mp3 at AM Then FM
Dave Edmunds - Back to School Days mp3 at Rock Town Hall
Dave Edmunds - Worn Out Suits, Brand New Pockets mp3 at Rock Town Hall
Dave Edmunds - I Knew the Bride (streaming) at YouTube
3 comments:
I never knew that Dave Edmunds had covered 'Get Out of Denver': I'd always assumed that (Eddie and) The Hot Rods, who had the hit in the UK, were inspired by the Bob Seeger original, but now I'm not sure.
Eddie and the Hod Rods version came out in 1976, Edmunds was '77. That surprised me because I don't remember Eddie and the Hot Rods being around that early.
You're absolutely right about "I Knew the Bride" -- Edmunds' version is MUCH better than Lowe's! One of my all-time faves, in fact.
One of the DJs on the late, lamented WHFS had a regular Friday afternoon set that he'd play every week. Here Comes the Weekend was part of it, and is another favorite.
Marc
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