Comments on: DAVE EDMUNDS – “I Hear You Knocking”

By: Lena

Lena — Tue, 22 May 2012 10:57:47 +0000

Death isn’t the end: http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/dont-remember-me-mcguinness-flint-when.html Thanks for reading, everyone!

By: Lena

Lena — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:54:15 +0000

Get on board: http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/sweet-escape-neil-diamond-cracklin.html Ta for reading, everyone!

By: Waldo

Waldo — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:54:07 +0000

I didn’t realise that this was the “Sabre Dance” man until a little later. Edmunds’ interpretation of Khachaturian’s dramatic piece I consider one or rock’s masterpieces. Showing off, yes, but gravy all the same and the end is breathtaking.

IHYK is tame fare by comparison but is still a stonking good ride. The telephone effect certainly works in its favour. I was a bit surprised to learn that it was “speeded up” but this does not alter my opinion of it, although I probably liked it more back in the day than I do now.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:38:52 +0000

Shame you had to spoil your otherwise excellent post with that arsey last sentence, but some fascinating info about the recording nonetheless.

By: vinylhabit

vinylhabit — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:59:55 +0000

OK, so the song bounced around in the American Top 40 charts for 9 weeks up until it peaked at the No. 4 spot. It is a great recording of a great song by a great artist. It surely out-rocked the 3 songs that edged it out of the number 1 spot in February of 1971. Are you ready? NO. 1 One Bad Apple – The Osmonds, NO. 2 Knock Three Times – Tony Orlando & Dawn, No. 3 Rose Garden – Lynn Anderson. And yes, the idea of recording his lead vocals over a telephone right through the London carrier office and back out the reciever held in front of a microphone in the studio was as unique sounding as it was ingenious. It was supposed to sound like one of those speakers outside an apartment building’s access doors. “You Can’t Come In” get it?? Nim-com-poops! His music will surely outlive any of the commentaries I have seen here today! vinylhabit

By: intothefireuk

intothefireuk — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:10:35 +0000

Having never heard of Smiley Lewis (at the time or indeed even now) it always felt like a Dave Edmunds original produced to recreate the sound of 50s recordings (although I’m not sure why he opted to phone in his vocals unless he overdid the EQ trying to replicate early Sun Studios sound). An odd record but extremely catchy and not unattractive. I would go 6/7 for the extra effort of actually playing all the instruments as well. Well done Dave.

By: Doctor Mod

Doctor Mod — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 21:16:11 +0000

Yes, yes–the generic connection to White Town is truly there. “Your Woman” is, for a variety of reasons, one of my all-time best of the last fifty years.

By: Doctor Mod

Doctor Mod — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 21:12:09 +0000

I actually liked it–”loved” it would be pushing matters–but I liked it much more than most of what was being played on US radio at the time. By late 1970/early 1971, we were undergoing the infantilization of pop music at the hands of child rock stars and stars of television shows aimed at the barely pubescent. What I liked about “I Hear You Knocking” was its sardonic value. It was a cover of a song I remembered from early childhood (the version I knew was sung, as I recall, by one Gail Storm, later remembered for her slightly grotesque commercials for alcohol addiction treatment). But this cover wasn’t sentimental in the slightest–the electronically pinched voice, the weird evocation of 50s bluesmen, and the oddly cheerful mood of it all struck me as quite sardonic and thus madly subverting the mainstream of pop at the moment.

It retrospect, it’s a mildly oddball thing, not that great, but, from my point of view, something of a bright point amidst the dreck of early 70s commercial pop–and the slide guitar is priceless.

By: Erithian

Erithian — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 14:03:10 +0000

Interesting thought MC – it was about 20 years since rock’n'roll, so perhaps you’re right. I got Tony Jasper’s “20 Years of British Record Charts” which oddly enough started with 1955 and finished with Rollermania – as if to say, where can it go from here?

Rosko was way less ludicrous than Westwood!

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:35:57 +0000

I remember the ads but I can’t remember who did them. Rosko (the Westwood of his day) would sound about right though.

There was a lot of this sort of stuff around at the (’73-4) time; Charlie Gillett’s Rock File books (still got those as well), the NME Book of Rock (free pullout, then actual book) and first Top 100 Albums list, obviously all with a view to The Story Has Ended It’s All Over.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:32:22 +0000

re White Town – great spot!

By: Erithian

Erithian — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:28:01 +0000

Wow MC – I still have the mags but not the binders or the diagram – yes, any chance of scanning the latter?

Remember the TV adverts? Emperor Rosko (I think) intoning lines like “The horrible Who!! Why did they smash their instruments? Check it out in The Story Of Pop”…

By: Pete Baran

Pete Baran — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:16:02 +0000

I can see some scanning and comentary being commissioned soon then… Sounds fascinating.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:14:13 +0000

I have the complete Story Of Pop in binders obtained in FREE BINDER OFFER at home!

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:13:31 +0000

Actually it was more of a piece with the DiY indie ethic; it’s White Town’s funny uncle.

By: Lena

Lena — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:13:29 +0000

The US #1 at this time was I Think I Love You, followed by Tears of a Clown, with the Christmas #1 being My Sweet Lord. All well and good, but I’m sorry the Jackson 5 didn’t have any transatlantic #1 hits, though I’m sure MJ did…(in Popstrology 1970 is “The Year of the Jackson 5″)…

By: Erithian

Erithian — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 12:49:42 +0000

I’d never associated this song with rock’n’roll revivalism – as I said earlier, this was a cover of 50s R&B, which, although one of the main influences of rock’n’roll, wasn’t quite the type of music the DC5, Wizzard and Showaddywaddy would revive. I think this was more of a piece with Fleetwood Mac’s early blues incarnation, and the strain of British music inspired by Muddy and Wolf which ran from the Stones through the Animals and Clapton, and was a formative element of heavy metal.

I first became interested in pop history through the part-work magazine “Story of Pop”, circa 1974, which included in its first issue a diagram of how pop music forms evolved and influenced each other. Anyone else remember it?

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 08:19:20 +0000

Yes – My Ding-A-Ling, Burning Love and Garden Party.

By: blount

blount — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 01:39:43 +0000

72 (i think) had chuck berry-elvis-ricky nelson back-to-back-to-back on the charts (stateside) right?

By: bramble

bramble — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 22:11:31 +0000

The rhythm section of Creedence Clearwater probably sounds better as I think Dave Edmunds multi-tracked all of I Hear You Knocking himself. As others have pointd out, 1969/70 saw one of the mini-rock n roll revivals that sporadically appeared -1974 was another time with Bill Haley charting again alongside Wizzard and Alvin Stardust.Mungo Jerry had covered some ‘I Hear you Knocking’-era songs on their first album shortly before this record and a year or so earlier Zappa had brought out his early rock and roll/doo-wop pastiche Cruising with Reuben and the Jets. Maybe it was all a reaction to the more overblown excesses of pyschedelia -or maybe just a marketing of nostalgia that reached its pinnacle of cynicism with Showaddywaddy

By: wwolfe

wwolfe — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 20:35:30 +0000

Heard in the context of 1970 (way too may sensitive singer-songwriters with acoustic guitars) by an 11-year old me who’d heard essentially no pre-Beatles rock and roll or R&B, this single sounded thrilling. Hearing it now, when singer-songwriters with Martin guitars are a niche market, not a dominant species, and after I’ve had three decades to become familiar with many of the pre-Beatles musical genres, Edmunds’ record has lost some of its spark. What once seemed defiant now feels persnickety. If I compare this record with the music John Fogerty was creating with Creedence Clearwater Revival at the exact same moment, the differences are clear: while basing their sounds on very similar influences, Edmunds’ work sounds hermetically sealed, while Fogerty’s feels alive and electric with the energy of its moment. (It doesn’t hurt that Fogerty’s records have a better rhythm section, singer, and songwriter in the bargain.) There’s an underlying (and sometimes overlying) grouchy mood of “These kids with their music these days” to much of Edmunds’ pre-Nick Lowe music that leaves a sour aftertaste.

Cool guitar, though.

By: Kat

Kat — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 17:38:26 +0000

Is everyone aware of this yet? Not a bad selection I think (blurb sez “from the NOW years” so no older stuff), and the 3CD format (1 per decade) is an interesting turn for the NOW series… Fighting back against downloads, ladies & gentlemen – the compilation album!

By: Erithian

Erithian — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 15:05:53 +0000

“speeded up by the record company”

Was it really??! No wonder Edmunds recently said he couldn’t play it now!

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:59:24 +0000

Re. the Dave Clark Five: “Good Old Rock ‘N’ Roll” (complete with fake crowd noises), top ten over Xmas ’69; “More Good Old Rock ‘N’ Roll” a year later didn’t do nearly as well.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:57:47 +0000

And also speeded up by the record company.

Interestingly Edmunds’ “Born To Be With You” appeared two years before the Dion/Spector one (though Edmunds does it uptempo).