Duane Eddy - Greatest Hits

RCA-period sampling

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. April 14, 2008

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