'I Hear You Knocking' is a cover of a popular 1955 R&B track originally recorded by Smiley Lewis. Lewis's take is a slow, piano led strut that sounds like it was recorded in a whorehouse (a fine version by Gale Storm recorded the same year follows the same structure, except she sounds like one of the whores getting rid of a client). Edmund's version speeds it up, swaps the piano for a crunchy guitar and puts more emphasis on it's twelve bar blues source - this might be just what the 1970's Christmas parties needed, but far from bluesy Edmund's sound is thin and scratchy with a slightly distorted slide guitar chopping in and out of the mix throughout. In some ways it's New Wave some eight years early, though it also gives a fair representation of listening to a distant, half tuned in offshore pirate radio station.
Something different for 1970 then, and a nice updating of an old song (Edmunds has stayed in the Rockabilly/R&B groove for almost the whole of his career), but the updating hasn't travelled the decades too well. The nasally vocal and wiry tone sounds terribly old hat to modern ears, like some third division XTC wannabes though it's not fair to blame Edmunds for the world catching up with his sound, popularising it and then ignoring his influence. Nice, but inessential - now that is a fair assessment.
No comments:
Post a Comment