Dave Edmunds - I Hear You Knocking

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As a teenager Edmunds first played with a band called the '99ers' and later in the 'Heartbeats' with his older brother Geoff. The first group that Edmunds fronted was the Cardiff based 1950s style rockabilly trio 'The Raiders', along with Bob 'Congo' Jones on drums and John Williams (stage name John David) on bass, that worked almost exclusively in the South Wales area. In the late 1960s, after a short spell in Parlophone recording band 'Image' with local drummer Tommy Riley, Edmunds shifted to a more blues-rock sound, reuniting with Congo Jones and bassist John Williams and adding second guitarist Mickey Gee to form the short lived 'The Human Beans," a band that played mostly in London and on the UK university circuit. In 1967 the band recorded a cover of "Morning Dew" on the Columbia label, that failed to have any chart impact. After just eighteen months the core of 'Human Beans' formed a new band called Love Sculpture that again reinstated Edmunds, Jones and Williams as a trio, who scored a quasi-novelty Top 5 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.

After Love Sculpture split, Edmunds had a UK Christmas Number 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's manager's MAM Records label. This single also reached #4 in the U.S., making it Edmunds's biggest hit by far on either side of the Pond. It sold over three million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. 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's album, 1972's Rockpile, and the momentum from the single's success on a different label went away.

Edmunds's 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.

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's own Repeat When Necessary) were group recordings. 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 and later a U.S. hit for Juice Newton), Graham Parker's "Crawling from the Wreckage", and Melvin Endsley's "Singing the Blues" (originally a hit for Marty Robbins).

SOURCE: Wikipedia

Category:

Education

Tags:

• pop
• rock
• british
• retro

[BrianandLynFroggatt]

Oops which was end of November 1970 and it was the Xmas number 1 too/ Lyn

[BrianandLynFroggatt]

This was number1 in charts when I was born

[Msemospongebob]

@TheHitDetector ;)

[Msemospongebob]

@TheHitDetector lol!

[TheHitDetector]

@Msemospongebob ...smiles

[Msemospongebob]

I wanna play this when people knock at my door!! :D

[TheBham54]

I remember this song from am radio in the early 70's and also a jukebox fav, wish I could remember the "B" side. Love Dave Edmunds, "Trax on Wax" is one of my all time favorite LPs, (and, yes, I realize this song was not on it) ...I'm just saying......

[PAULLONDEN]

An overload of info,but no year or place, of this performance.

Somewhere in the 9T's,me thinks.

[Korban3]

Dave Edmunds. Too awesome for one drum set.

[bobu46]

Dave at his best - simply great ! Thanx!