A year ago, Englishman Dave Edmunds introduced himself to the rock audience through a scrupulously crafted recording of "I Hear You Knockin'," once a Fats Domino hit. Edmunds' version featured a primitive, sharply echoed vocal sound that wasn't at all in the New Orleans style, but was rather like Sun Records. Edmunds added another novel touch by replacing the expected piano with a brittle slide guitar track that even out-trebled the vocal. The sound of "I Hear You Knockin'" seemed to improve in inverse proportion to the quality of the speakers it was played through–it was consciously crude and mangy, and naturally it made a terrific single, enjoying considerable success.

Now Edmunds has a whole album full of crude, mangy, captivating songs. There's only one original and many of the rest are from the same era that spawned Dave's hit single. Even the newer songs are done in vintage style. Edmunds did most of the playing (guitar, drums, and occasionally piano) himself, but he knew when to introduce a specific sound that was beyond his own musicianly resources. B.J. Cole's pedal steel is particularly effective on the three tracks in which it is used, adding a soft-edged, willowy overtone to Edmunds' slashingly tough electric guitar playing. Bass player John Williams is Edmunds' only constant accompanist.

Edmunds is more preoccupied with the sound of vintage rock 'n' roll than even John Fogerty or Keith Richard. Whereas Creedence and the Stones work through basic rock 'n' roll forms toward some conceptual end, Edmunds' chief concern is the forms themselves, or, more precisely, the sound of this rough, vital music. Real rock 'n' roll speaks through total sound much more than it does through lyrics anyway, so form practically equals content.

Rockpile is a fervently rendered ode to the electric guitar, as much as Derek and the Dominos' Layla is. Each track features a different guitar voice: on Neil Young's "Dance, Dance, Dance," it's a carefree twang of pedal steel; in "Down, Down, Down," it's a persistent mumbling, in Willy Dixon's "Egg or the Hen," it's a snarl tracked into a whole pack of mean, razor-edged tones; and in the Edmunds - Williams original, "Hell of a Pain," the voice is, to borrow from Marc Bolan, gleefully sweet and nasty. Nastiest of all is Dave's flat-out screaming rendition of Dylan's already speedy "Outlaw Blues." On it, the guitars shiver ominously like so many sheets of aluminum–even the vocal is metal. The song treats Dylan with the same mixture of reverence and raunch with which Dylan himself approaches Woody Guthrie in the just-released live recording of "Grand Coulee Dam." Both come out firing.

The two Chuck Berry songs on the album, "Sweet Little Rock & Roller" and "Long Promised Road," are done according to the book Berry wrote; from top to bottom, they're purist renditions. Edmunds has it down very well indeed–he had it down, evidently, way back in '66, when, according to the liner credits, the "Long Promised Road" track was recorded. One wonders why it took Edmunds five years to surface. On both the '66 and the '71 Berry tracks, the unmistakable cut-velvet guitar sound, perfectly recaptured, is the focal point. Throughout the LP, drums and even vocals are unquestionably basic, often to the point of real crudity. But those elements, too, are part of the sonic totality Edmunds strives for, so I imagine they're done that way intentionally.

Rockpile may not possess either the sheer virtuosity or the plaintive emotional undertone of Layla, but it's nearly as energizing to listen to. Albums like these should be required listening for anyone studying thermodynamics. (RS 106)

BUD SCOPPA