STUDIO CLASSICIST: DAVE EDMUNDS

You’ve gotta hand it to Dave Edmunds —he knows what he likes. His sound is a little old-fashioned rockabilly, a little country twang, a little Everly Brothers pop and some high-octane blues, all combined and thrown through some echo and reverb if not subjected to a full Spectorsound mix. The resulting style is easily recognizable as Edmunds’ own, if for no other reason than the fact that his music has sounded the same for well over a decade now. It is a sound that’s as timeless as its obvious roots.

Edmunds wasn’t always such a purist. He first achieved notoriety in 1967 as the guitarist for Love Sculpture, and more specifically as the maniac whose amphetamine-crazed 11-minute arrangement of classical composer Khachaturian’s famed “Sabre Dance” left Alvin Lee’s “I’m Going Home” opus standing in the dust. (It also pointed out an irreverent approach to classical rock that the E.L.P./Yes brigades of a few years later largely ignored or bungled.) Love Sculpture’s Forms And Feelings album also featured disfigurings of other classical pieces by Holst and Bizet and some largely undistinguished progressive rock, such that the real Dave Edmunds surfaces only on a breakneck version of Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me” (and the band’s other, more rootsoriented Blues Helping LP).