What am I thankful for? A surprise single release from Dave Edmunds, beloved rocker, guitarist and producer. Dave lives in Wales these days and hasn’t put out a new record in some time. I’m constantly bothering people who know him asking what’s going on.
What’s going on is a very Dave-ish brilliant rave up of Jerry Lee Lewis’s 1957 rockabilly classic, “It’ll Be Me.” Dave probably knows even better the 1962 cover by UK superstars Cliff Richards and the Shadows.
Of course, I love Dave’s version. Something about his records have a glow from within. For a musician who’s not supposed to have a very sunny outlook, a Dave Edmunds record always sounds like it’s full of optimism and good cheer– even when he’s ‘crawling from the wreckage.’
If you don’t know Dave Edmunds, slip back to the early 70s when his landmark cover of “I Hear You Knocking” went up the charts. Later in the 70s he hooked with the likes of Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello. His releases on Swan Song Records remain among my favorites of all time: “Get It,” “Tracks on Wax 4,” and the masterpiece, “Repeat When Necessary” are desert island discs for sure. Edmunds and Lowe briefly formed Rockpile, and Dave jumped to Columbia Records for 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 the Stray Cats’ two gigantic chart hits — “Rock this Town” and my favorite, “Stray Cat Strut.” He also produced the lead off track, “In Quintessence,” on Squeeze’s classic album, “East Side Story.”
So it’ll be him on this new release, and maybe this means a whole album is coming. What a total delight.
