A few good times in my life
One more journey through songs that hit the charts and other that are just good.
1957: Buddy Holly
1966: Jr. Walker (I prefer the cover by The Flying Lizards from1979)
1972: Elton John
1978: Meat Loaf
1997: Natalie Imbruglia (not only because she recently said goodbye to the music business)
1966: Spencer David Group
1966: The Beach Boys
1977: Dave Mason
1985: Pet Shop Boys
1965: The Who
1982: Golden Earring
1964: Petula Clark
1970: Gilbert O'Sullivan
1970: Dave Edmunds
1978: Joe Jackson
Last round for this little series about Saturday. We start with Sam Cooke, who sadly died far too early and had a good number of hit singles before his murder. The next one was written by CCR's John Fogerty and covered years later by Dave Edmunds. Finally one of my favorite songs by Tom Waits. Seldom was a cruising through a Saturday night on the search for solution better described as by him.
After writing about the Cramps last week, it's time to talk about another band that at the same time brought back music that had been lost for a long time. The Stray Cats were an American band who celebrated their greatest successes in England and on the continent in the early 80s. In Dave Edmunds, they found a producer who himself was knee-deep in rock 'n' roll. With their first record, they have brought us back closer to the roots of rock music. As a band that played their earthy music as a three-man combo with guitar, stand-up bass and simple drums, they were the sensation of the year in 1981. Decades later, their sound still sounds fresh and urban, setting the standard for all subsequent epigones.
Stray Cats - Runaway Boys
Stray Cats - Rock This Town
Stray Cats - Stray Cat Strut
Stray Cats - Rumble In Brighton
A few days ago I was in a mood to look at my blog posts from the time I started starting this blog. I came across an old series, which I kept going at the time and during which I took a closer look at the time of pub rock. I came across a post I wrote 10 years ago and featured Mickey Jupp. He was a singer/songwriter associated with the so called Southend music scene. In the very early 70's he released a few albums with a mix of rockabilly, blues rock and pop. His success was limited but he became a leading figure a few years later at the pub-rock scene and played on the same level as Dr. Feelgood for whom he wrote Down At The Doctors. Other artists like Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe covered his songs after he signed to Stiff record label. I loved to listen to his songs after decades and I think it is necessary to feature him and his music once again.
Mickey Jupp's Legend - Cross Country
Mickey Jupp's Legend - My Typewriter
Mickey Jupp's Legend - Another Guy
Mickey Jupp's Legend - Heather On The Hill
For his dialect blues and rock, the Austrian singer Willi Resetarits was known as "Ostbahn-Kurti" - now the musician has died at the age of 73. He died on Sunday by an accident in his home. He started his career in the late 60's as a member of Schmetterlinge a political agitating band. They got country-wide known as they represented Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1977 where less people understood the irony in their song about commercial mass compatible songs. Since the eighties Resetarits, switched to lead vocals and harmonica, portrayed the rock'n "roll art figure Ostbahn Kurti. He invented the fictional biography of the forgotten Viennese suburban rock'n' roller with proletarian pride, slippery street-smart Viennese wordplay and earthy interpretations of great post-sixties blues and rock classics in the Viennese dialect, including his versions of several songs by Bruce Fire ("Feia"), Townes Van Zandt's "At my Window" (Liagn and lochn) and songs by Dave Edmunds, ZZ Top, Steve Miller or Frank Zappa. In recent years he has been very committed to social projects and became one of the most humorous and therefore most credible and vocal speakers for integration and dignified dealings with refugees and minorities of the republic. He was not a phenomenal musician or songwriter but beyond doubt a very good live artist and I can bear witness when I saw him several times live with his band during the last decades.
Rest easy Willi
Dave Edmunds - Born To Be With You
Dave Edmunds - No Money Down
Dave Edmunds - Leave My Woman Alone
If we talk about pub rock and I have recently written about Nick Lowe, the name Dave Edmunds cannot be remained unmentioned. Dave Edmunds is a Welsh guitarist, singer and producer. Although he was named with pub rock and New Wave his natural leaning has always been leaning to 50s style an rock and roll. He's became known in the late 60s with his band Love Sculpture as he scored a hit by a cover from Khachaturian's Sabre Dance as a high speed-crazed rock number. He was always torn backwards and I know him as a type that was born 30 years too late. His next project was to make an album that would have a Phil Spector-sound. Subtle as a Flying Mallet could be a record that was produced by Phil Spector. Most of the instruments were played by Dave Edmunds and it is still a superb record. After this record he became linked with the pub rock movement in the early 1970s, producing Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe and The Flamin' Groovies. One of his trademarks was using a stripped down, grittier sound mostly reduced to a leading guitar. In this time he started his collaboration with Nick Lowe and their band Rockpile. Until the 1980s they couldn't act as a band because they signed to different companies. Also the line-up on their solo records were nearly the same over the years. Dave Edmunds had several hits through the 1980s covering songs from Elvis Costello, Graham Parker and Nick Lowe. In the 1980s he produced acts carrying his musical influences into today like King Kurt and The Stray Cats.
