Dave Edmunds

Dave Edmunds, born in Cardiff in 1944, has been playing in bands since he was 10, when he started out alongside his older brother Geoff, and he has spent the decades since making vintage rock and roll sound like it was cut this morning. In 1968 he was in Love Sculpture, who went top 5 with a hot-wired "Sabre Dance", and on his own he struck gold with his 1970 Christmas single, "I Hear You Knocking", which sold more than three million copies.

In 1976 he threw in with Nick Lowe, Billy Bremner and Terry Williams as Rockpile, though contract snarls kept them from making a record under that name until Seconds of Pleasure in 1980, after which they fell apart. In the meantime Edmunds made his own records, with a fine ear for other people's songs: Lowe's "I Knew the Bride" on Get It, Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk" and Graham Parker's "Crawling From the Wreckage" on Repeat When Necessary, plus "Queen of Hearts" and "Singing the Blues". Twang, snap and not an ounce of fat.

Through the '80s he was as busy behind the desk as in front of the mic, producing Paul McCartney, Stray Cats, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Status Quo and King Kurt. Information, in 1983, gave him a US top 40 hit in "Slipping Away", and Riff Raff followed in 1984. He recorded less after that, and after a farewell show in July 2017, word was that he had quit the music business for good.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.