Search - Duane Eddy :: Greatest Hits

RCA-period sampling

Laurence Upton | Wilts, UK | 04/14/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Conventional wisdom is that Duane Eddy's best work was for Lee Hazlewood's Jamie label, between 1958 and 1962, whereas the material he cut for RCA from 1962 to 1965 was sanitized, commercialized and lightweight. One only has to compare the 1964 version of Rebel-Rouser on this CD with the 1958 original to see some truth in this. From the same year, Rumble, the Link Wray classic, on paper promises to be explosive but wouldn't even register on the Richter scale, notwithstanding a slightly menacing undercurrent, and sounds polite enough to be played at a vicar's tea party. Some tracks, such as the saxophone-led Tequila, hardly seem to feature Duane at all.



In the three years he was with the label, RCA managed to squeeze nine albums out of him, all hurriedly recorded and often built around a theme, so we have for example Twistin' 'N' Twangin', Twangy Guitar - Silky Strings and Twang A Country Song. Additionally, many of the singles were in addition to the albums. No wonder quality control was stretched.



However, he also made some of his most memorable recordings at RCA. The Ballad Of Paladin (from the film Have Gun Will Travel) is a minor classic and continued successfully in the style of his 1960 smash Because They're Young. It was Top Ten in the UK. Deep In The Heart Of Texas was also a Top Twenty hit in the UK, and (Dance With The) Guitar Man and Boss Guitar, both featuring the Rebelettes (actually the Blossoms, featuring Darlene Love, from the period that they were also doubling as the Crystals for Phil Spector) were sizeable pop hits both in America and the UK. Guitar Man in particular remains one of Duane Eddy's most anthologized tracks.



This 26-track single CD seems to guide us through the best of the RCA years. Certainly with seven A-sides it has nearly all of the singles RCA put out, and it also has thirteen album tracks (five from Dance With The Guitar Man as well as the single, the rest from Twangy Guitar - Silky Strings, Twangin' The Golden Hits, Twistin' N' Twangin', Twangin' Up A Storm and Twangsville - it really is all about the twang). I'm not personally familiar with most of these albums, so I don't know if the best tracks have been picked but I certainly found much to enjoy from tracks such as The Scrape, High Noon, Blowin' Up A Storm and The Feud. With the exception of the instrumental mono single Moon Shot (written by David Gates long before he wrote Moonchild for Captain Beefheart) all of these tracks are in well-mastered true stereo.



The remaining six tracks are all mono B-sides (tr. 19-23 and 26) and far from being throwaways are among some of the strongest cuts on the record, particularly The Iguana, Roughneck, The Wild Westerners (a theme from a B-movie western in which he had an acting role) and The Desert Rat. It caused me to wonder if some of these were actually Jamie recordings that RCA had acquired, as most of them involved Lee Hazlewood as writer or recording supervisor. Unfortunately, the anonymous liner notes are typically vague as to the origins of any of the tracks.



It seems quite possible that this good value CD represents the best way for the non-completist to sample Duane Eddy's RCA period."

Lower Energy UK ReRecordings

Stephanie DePue | Carolina Beach, NC USA | 02/24/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

""The Greatest Hits of Duane Eddy," comes to us as an English import, not surprisingly, as he's always been perhaps even more popular there than here. Eddy, a Grammy-winning guitarist, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, is widely considered the most successful rock and roll instrumentalist of all time: his records have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. And there can be no doubt that, from his first hit and signature tune, the aptly-named "Rebel Rouser," recorded in 1958, when he was just twenty, he's one of the founding fathers of rockabilly, and, by extension, rock and roll.



The record at hand is a good collection of his biggest hits, rerecorded in the U.K., some of them originally bigger in the U.K. than here, although he had an unprecedented 34 chart-topping singles here, of which 15 made Top Forty rank. The U.K. rerecording was done, of course, when he was considerably past his dark, hit-making prime. You don't need me to tell you that the material isn't as strong as the originals. If you want them, you should consider trying to get a remastering of one of his earlier records.



Eddy's" big" sound prompted John Fogarty to dub him the first rock and roll god. The tremendously influential sound was deep, dark, reverberant,"twangy,"as it was called, surely Southern-fried, influenced by country, blues, jazz and gospel. Eddy created this sound by utilizing strong, dramatic, single-note melodies, bending the low strings, combining echo and vibrato bar with the help of the esteemed Lee Hazlewood, longtime music producer, and Eddy's longtime partner in the recording studio. He also utilized rebel yells from his backing band, and swinging saxophone breaks. Furthermore, his backing were also esteemed musicians. Many of them went on to work for Phil Spector, as he created his "wall of sound." In addition, almost all of them were/are popular studio session men to this day.



If you want the more *modern* versions of these tunes, guess this is the disk for you. Otherwise, try looking back.



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