What am I grateful for? A surprise single from Dave Edmunds, beloved rocker, guitarist and producer. Dave lives in Wales these days and hasn’t released a new record in quite some time. I constantly disturb people who know him by asking him what’s going on.
What happens is a very brilliant Dave-ish frenzy of Jerry Lee Lewis’ 1957 rockabilly classic, “It’ll Be Me.” Dave is probably even more familiar with the 1962 cover of British superstars Cliff Richards and the Shadows.
Of course, I love Dave’s version. Something in his records has a glow from within. For a musician who isn’t supposed to have a very sunny outlook, a Dave Edmunds record always sounds like he’s full of optimism and good humor, even when he “comes out of the wreck”.
If you don’t know Dave Edmunds, go back to the early ’70s when his iconic cover of “I Hear You Knocking” hit the charts. Later in the 1970s, he became addicted to Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello. His releases on Swan Song Records remain among my all-time favorites: “Get It”, “Tracks on Wax 4” and the masterpiece “Repeat When Necessary” are sure to be records from the Deserted Isles. Edmunds and Lowe briefly formed Rockpile, and Dave jumped on Columbia Records to a big hit with Bruce Springsteen’s “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)”.
On the production side, Edmunds is notable for giving us two massive hits from the Stray Cats – “Rock this Town” and my favorite, “Stray Cat Strut”. He also produced the main off-track, “In Quintessence”, on Squeeze’s classic album, “East Side Story”.
So that’ll be him on this new release, and maybe that means an entire album is coming. What a total delight.
