Search - Heinz :: Just Like Eddie: Heinz Anthology

Spilling the beans

Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 09/06/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Heinz Burt was born in Germany but he moved with his parents to England when he was nine or ten. He came to the attention of famed record producer Joe Meek, who eventually assembled the Tornados with Heinz as the group`s bass player. That group had an international number one hit with Telstar and followed it up with Globetrotter, a British top five hit. Just when it seemed that the Tornados might rival the Shadows and the Ventures as a major instrumental pop group, Joe Meek decided to launch Heinz on a solo career. The Tornados recordings (which have been made available separately elsewhere) are outside the scope of this compilation, which focuses exclusively on Heinz's solo music.



Insofar as Heinz is remembered at all as a solo singer, it will be for his British top five hit Just like Eddie, which is a tribute to Eddie Cochran. Heinz actually had four other UK hits, these being Country boy, You were there, Questions I can't answer and Diggin' my potatoes, but none of them made the top twenty. Six other singles including a cover of Don't think twice it's all right (Bob Dylan) failed to chart. Note that two other titles (The end of the world, Don`t worry baby) are NOT covers of the similarly-titled songs made famous by Skeeter Davis and the Beach Boys respectively. The first CD here includes all of Heinz's eleven singles, both A and B sides, presented in chronological order. A previously unreleased cover of Come on let's go (Ritchie Valens) completes CD 1.



The second CD contains all the tracks from Heinz's EP's and LP's, even including two tracks (Dreams do come true, Just like Eddie) that were also released as singles. If the record label had omitted anything, this would have annoyed me, but it seems that everything that Heinz recorded as a solo singer is included, so I suppose the duplication is fair enough. The first four tracks originally appeared on an eponymous EP and comprise a cover of That lucky old sun (originally recorded by Frankie Laine, but since covered by plenty of others) and three original songs. The next four tracks were released together on another EP, Live it up. Joe Meek wrote all four tracks, but one of them was the failed A-side, Dreams do come true.



Tracks 9 to 22 on CD 2 originally made up Heinz's only LP, Tribute to Eddie. While it contained five covers of Eddie Cochran songs (Summertime blues, Cut across Shorty, Twenty flight rock, I remember, Three steps to heaven), it wasn't a tribute album in the full sense. The title track is an original song by Joe Meek, while Heinz's big hit (Just like Eddie) is also featured, but I'm not convinced that the other six songs belong in an Eddie Cochran tribute album. Then again, tribute albums were in their infancy in those days so perhaps record buyers regarded this is a genuine tribute album back then.



Tracks 23 and 24 are live covers of Somebody to love (Bobby Darin) and I got a woman (Ray Charles). They were originally released on a multi-artist live album of Cavern Club recordings. CD 2 is completed by two BBC recordings, the first being a live version of one of Heinz's hits, Questions I can't answer, and the second being a live cover of Hound dog (made famous by Elvis Presley).



The accompanying booklet gives all the facts you need to know about Heinz. He died aged 57 (!) of motor neurone disease. Committed fans of early sixties British pop music, particularly of Joe Meek`s productions, will enjoy this, while fans of Eddie Cochran may also regard this as an essential curiosity.

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A few rarities worth getting

John Holloway | Melbourne, Australia | 06/27/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As a keen collector of virtually every charted song of the past 5 decades it's always a delight to come across songs which, until now, have been impossible to get on CD. Now at last three hits by British performer Heinz have appeared on this new release called Anthology. They include Just Like Eddie (1964), Country Boy (1965) and the Beating Of My Heart (1965). All did moderately well on the Australian music charts. What makes this so special. apart from the rarity of these songs, is that they are the original studio recordings - and they sound superb!. Highly recommended for the 60's pop enthusiasts."