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Dave Edmunds' Rockpile

Dave Edmunds is a Welsh singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. Although he is mainly associated with Pub Rock and New Wave, having many hits in the 1970s and early 1980s, his natural leaning has always been towards 1950s-style rock and roll.

Edmunds had been in a number of bands in the mid to late 1960s and he had a UK Christmas Number 1 single in 1970 with "I Hear You Knocking".


The Brinsley Schwarz connection brought about a collaboration with Nick Lowe starting with this album, and in 1976 they formed the group Rockpile, with Billy Bremner and Terry Williams. 

Because Edmunds and Lowe signed to different record labels that year, they could not record as Rockpile until 1980, but many of their solo LPs (such as Lowe's Labour of Lust and Edmunds' own Repeat When Necessary) were group recordings. 

Edmunds had more UK hits during this time, including Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk"


Nick Lowe's "I Knew the Bride", 


Graham Parker's "Crawling from the Wreckage". 

Unexpectedly, after Rockpile released their first LP under their own name, 'Seconds of Pleasure' in 1980, the band split. 

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