Customer Reviews

Premium Gold Collection

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

From EMI of Germany, this disc gathers up the early output of Dave Edmunds and his pre-solo Love Sculpture group. The "Premium Gold Collection" title for this piece is a bit of a stretch since this collection is limited Edmunds' early 70's recordings and in no way can be considered a career retrospective or "greatest hits". The first 13 tracks are from his Love Sculpture days with the remaining tracks representing his solo work of the early 70's. There is one interesting find here, the appearance of his second charting single, "I'm Comin' Home", a tune not found on virtually any other Edmonds CD.

Sound quality is reasonably good overall with most tracks in stereo while 7,8,15 and 18 appear in mono. Two pages of liner notes included in the booklet are in German.

This German import compiles some of the Welsh rocker's earliest recordings: with Love Sculpture, '68-'69, and other solo stuff from his pre-Lowe/Rockpile days ('70-'71.) "Digitally Remastered" is no joke; I've got all of these tracks on vinyl and the sound quality on this disc is much better (especially "Blue Monday!)

The Love Sculpture stuff flips between electric-bluesy and flower child la-la-la, with the standouts being Edmunds' guitar rave-ups of Bizet's "Farandole" and Khatchaturian's "Sabre Dance" (the edited version - thank you! - at eleven minutes the full track is a little much.) Freddy King's "The Stumble" does just that, I'm afraid. The fast blues is definitely fast but sounds kind of flashy and amateurish. (So, how many Claptons can there be?) He fares better on the slower "Come Back Baby" (Ray Charles) and has a real nice solo on "Summertime" (yes, THAT "Summertime.") And the handful of sappy hippy-dippy songs are . . . well, after all, it WAS the '60's. (Peace Love Dove!)

The later "solo" tracks have Edmunds finding the straight-up rock 'n roll groove that's served him (and us!) so well throughout his career. A couple of Chuck Berry covers, Fats Domino's "Blue Monday," and some country blues give us a taste of what he would later refine into his signature style. The standouts here are: "It Ain't Easy" (killer!), "Blue Monday" ("Here Comes The Weekend" anyone?), "Down, Down, Down" (Rockpile concert standard), and "I Hear You Knocking" (the perfect pop song?)

I give the collection 4 stars because if you're a real Edmunds fan there are songs here that you simply MUST have. And it's always interesting to see how our faves started out. With this disc you get to hear the seeds that grew into a Rockpile.