Rockpile - A Mess of Blues - Non-Album Tracks (1977)

I'm very happy to present this album. I really love Rockpile, and I think this is great music that really rocks. You should check it out.

I should explain a bit about Rockpile, because they were a band with a rather unusual history. They basically were the merger of the careers of Dave Edmunds (on vocals and guitar) and Nick Lowe (on vocals and bass), with Billy Bremner (on vocals and guitar) and Terry Williams (on drums) rounding out the group. Edmunds would sing about half the songs and Lowe the other half, with Bremner getting to sing a song every now and then.

What made them unusual was that the band was together for about five years, and yet they only put out one studio album, near the end of their time together. This is because Edmunds was on one record label and Lowe was on another, and both wanted to pursue solo careers. So Rockpile was the backing band on all the songs for one of Lowe's solo albums and two of Edmunds', as well as backing some songs on their other solo albums. But while that was going on, neither Lowe or Edmunds did solo concerts. Nearly all their concerts from 1977 to the end of 1980 were done with Rockpile. Such concerts were billed as "Rockpile" despite the band not having any albums or even singles released. I guess word of mouth spread who Rockpile really was.

I've made four stray tracks albums for Rockpile; this is the first one. It would have been easy for me to simply collect the performances from the various Edmunds and Lowe solo albums and put them together to make Rockpile albums. But I didn't do that, because I think all those albums are really good as they are. Instead, I limited myself to everything else I could find. Since Rockpile was a very active live band, that mainly meant using recordings from live shows.

All the performances here are from 1977. About half the songs are different versions of songs from either Edmunds' or Lowe's solo albums at the time. Three more songs are versions of songs from Edmunds albums in 1970 or 1972 ("Down, Down, Down," "The Promised Land," and "I Hear You Knocking").

That leaves four songs. "A Mess of Blues" is a cover of a song made famous by Elvis Presley. "Downtown Hoedown" was recorded by Billy Bremner right before he joined Rockpile, but not released until many years after the band broke up. "Annie's Back - I Need Love" are a medley of obscure covers sung by Bremner. And "As Lovers Do" was the B-side to a Edmunds single. I've included it because it was a duet with Lowe.

01 Heart of the City (Rockpile)
02 Ju Ju Man (Rockpile)
03 Down, Down, Down (Rockpile)
04 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Rockpile)
05 Back to School Days (Rockpile)
06 They Called It Rock (Rockpile)
07 A Mess of Blues (Rockpile)
08 I Hear You Knocking (Rockpile)
09 Downtown Hoedown (Billy Bremner)
10 The Promised Land (Rockpile)
11 Let's Talk about Us (Rockpile)
12 Annie's Back - I Need Love (Rockpile)
13 As Lovers Do (Dave Edmunds with Nick Lowe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266518/Rockpl_1977_AMssBlues_atse.zip.html

I haven't been able to find lot of good color photos of Rockpile in color. For the album cover, I found a cover of a Rockpile bootleg that looked great. So I used it with only minor changes. I don't know where or when the photo is from.