Clearly, Dave Edmunds had more use for Nick Lowe than he let on. If Edmunds' craftsmanship and prestige lent Lowe an anchor that prevented the latter's flakiest productions from sounding ephemeral, Lowe repaid the favor by providing Edmunds with a much-needed dose of hip cachet. Besides pointing the archivist toward material that pushed him dramatically into the present (Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk" being the most triumphant example), Lowe, through his comic-book sense of rock dynamics, gave Edmunds' chunkily straight-ahead musical style some curves and shortcuts it never had before.
"The Race Is On," showcases nouveau rockabillies and Edmunds protégés the Stray Cats, while the other is a tape of "Baby Let's Play House" dating from 1968), and Lowe helps out with the writing chores in a couple of cuts. Yet though it was recorded before Rockpile's breakup,
Twangin ... seems to anticipate it: the mood and feel is Dave Edmunds in isolation, with everyone else adding self-effacing background noise.
Song selection is typically excellent. John Fogerty's "Almost Saturday Night" sounds just fine after all these years, "The Race Is On" never stopped, and it's always nice to hear somebody cover a John Hiatt composition. The playing is inevitably top-notch, too. But Edmunds, likable, reliable and worthy as he is, has to have one of the dullest attitudes toward rock & roll of anyone who's ever claimed to love it. There's no crude passion or nervy idiosyncrasy in his approach. Everything is tasteful and respectably safe. Even when he sounds bad ass, he sounds reverentially bad ass. Only "(I'm Gonna Start) Living Again if It Kills Me," which Edmunds and Lowe wrote with Carlene Carter, has a real, sweet personality. It's also the lone tune here that departs from the predominant ruler-tapping tempos into some genuine lilt and swing.
Dave Edmunds is a first-rate musician, and Twangin ... will undoubtedly satisfy anybody whose main interest in music is, ah, music. But the rest of us might wonder a little at the notion of a collection of classic rock & roll songs that doesn't make you feel like dancing at least once. (RS 349)
TOM CARSON
