In the late 70s and the early 80s, when the world was disco-ing up, I was spinning records at Deja Vu, an oldies bar in Washington, D.C. It was maybe my favorite job ever. Law school by day, and good old rock & roll at night. I only worked one or two nights a week, but it was a great gig. Playing mostly music from the 50s and 60s to big crowds of dancing prepsters, I was able to slip in some newer rock & roll, too. Like Dave Edmunds.
I first heard of Dave Edmunds in the late 70s. His album Get It was released in 1977. It was Dave's third studio album, but the first one that I heard. It included a few Dave Edmunds' originals, along with a bunch of covers, including Bob Seger's Get Out of Denver. I played Get Out of Denver and Here Comes the Weekend, a Dave Edmunds / Nick Lowe collaboration, often at Deja Vu. They're great dance songs - - as are most Dave Edmunds' recordings - - and have that 50s / 60s retro sound.
Since then I think that I bought every Dave Edmunds album that's ever been released, including the amazing 1980 Rockpile album called Seconds of Pleasure. Featuring Dave, Nick Lowe, Billy Bremner and Terry Williams, Rockpile only released one album, but the group played together on several solo Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe records.
I saw Dave Edmunds only once, in 1999 or so, at The Point in Bryn Mawr. It was just Dave and his electric guitar, and it was just after Dave released his Hand Picked: Musical Fantasies album, which features amazing guitar solos by Dave, along with some great rock songs. With a packed house in a very intimate venue, it was an amazing show. My brother Charlie called it the best concert he had ever been to. (He might have temporarily forgotten that he had seen the Beatles in 1964.)
There are dozens of Dave Edmunds songs that could be featured, but I'm going with a song from Tracks on Wax 4, an album released in 1978 and featured the Rockpile gang (Edmunds, Lowe, Bremner and Williams). My favorite song on that album is Deborah, a song written by Dave and Nick Lowe. Here are a couple of versions of Deborah: The first version of "Deborah," from about 1980, is Rockpile doing the song, with Dave Edmunds on lead vocals and lead guitar, Nick Lowe on bass guitar, Billy Bremner on rhythm guitar and backing vocals, and Terry Williams on drums. The second version of "Deborah" is Dave Edmunds from literally 10 days ago, at age 73, and still looking good and playing fabulously.