Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!: Day 107 - Dave Edmunds

Dave Edmunds is one of those blokes who just seems to have been around forever and a day! I mean that in a nice way of course. I can recall seeing him on the televison when I was a kid performing I Hear You Knocking, Baby I Love You, and Born To Be With You.

I forgot to mention it yesterday but it was his 71st birthday and he's still making music. Well done Mr Edmunds.

I want to spotlight one of his albums that I think is his best one (he actually has some brilliant albums that are well worth checking out).

Repeat When Necessary was recorded and released at the same time as Nick Lowe's second album Labour of Lust (Radar Records). Both albums featured the same main musicians: Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Billy Bremner and Terry Williams - collectively known as Rockpile.

The lead single from the album Girls Talk was an Elvis Costello song that he eventually released himself as the B-Side to I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down (January 1980). Crawling From The Wreckage was written by Graham Parker (and to my knowledge he hasn't recorded it himself). Dave Edmunds had a good ear for a song and chose some very interesting covers for the album - Dynamite (had been recorded by Cliff Richard and The Shadows in 1959), Take Me For A Little While (originally recorded by Evie Sands and also covered by Dusty Springfield in 1967), Home In My Hand (had been recorded by Nick Lowe's previous band Brinsley Schwarz in 1972) and Bad is Bad was written by Huey Lewis who would four years later release it along with his band The News on their multi-platinum album Sports.

I don't know why this album didn't reach higher in the charts than it did because it is a real gem. When it came out I can remember playing it a lot. Still makes me smile all these years down the road.

 

Repeat When Necessary - Dave Edmunds

Swan Song

Produced by Dave Edmunds

Released June 1979

UK Chart #39

US Chart #54

Personnel
    Dave Edmunds – guitars, piano and vocals
    Billy Bremner – guitar and backing vocals
    Nick Lowe – bass and backing vocals
    Terry Williams – drums

Additional personnel
    Huey Lewis – harmonica on "Bad Is Bad"
    Albert Lee – guitar on "Sweet Little Lisa"
    Roger Bechirian – piano on "Girls Talk"

Singles from Repeat When Necessary

Girls Talk

May 1979

UK Charts #4

US Charts #65

Queen of Hearts

September 1979

UK Chart #11

Crawling From The Wreckage

November 1979

UK Chart #59

Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!