Happy birthday to Dave Edmunds. Most people only know him by his 1970 hit "I Hear You Knockin'"
But in the very late 70's when I was learning to play guitar, the radio had mostly gone to utter shit. Radio segmentation was in its infancy. Disco hadn't rotted away yet. Punk had run its course and given way to New Wave, most of which was abysmal. And while there was some noise about some band out of Pasadena with a killer guitar player, the first thing they put out was a Kinks cover. Not terribly promising. Skynrd had mostly died in a plane crash, ZZ Top was on hiatus in Texas, Boston was embroiled in legal battles. The Rolling Stones were doing disco. Rod Stewart was doing disco. It was an awful time.
But there were two hopeful signs for rock n roll, both coming out of England. The first was Dire Straits, who'd released a song about a bar band that marked the first appearance of bona fide Fender Stratocaster tone since Hendrix had died. The second was that Dave Edmunds had abandoned trying to be Todd Rundgren and had formed a new band that was doing rock n roll. Real rock n roll. Like Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry and the Faces rock n roll. The band would go on to become Rockpile, and the music would be dismissed as "pub rock" by critics who had their noses so far up John Lydon's ass that their ears were brown. But due to legal restrictions it was then just Dave Edmunds' band, and it was great. I was hooked. It's still some of my favorite music.
https://youtu.be/S4TzjRFfsJs
