Originally released in 2005,
Alive & Pickin’ captures a solo concert from
Dave Edmunds at St. David’s Hall in Cardiff, Wales given sometime in the first part of the 2000s.
Edmunds runs through his back pages, not only in the sense of running through his hits but also revisiting favorite songs from his childhood, knocking out instrumental covers of “Lady Madonna,” “Sweet Georgia Brown,” and “Sheik of Araby,” throwing a little
Chuck Berry,
Elvis Presley, and even a medley of Welsh tunes into the mix. Apart from perhaps “Classical Gas,” none of the selections are exactly surprising yet this isn’t a conventional live set, as it doesn’t push the old familiar favorites -- he achieves a balance of standards and covers -- and the stripped-down setting is unusual for
Edmunds. The oddity of the spare electric picking is intriguing if never quite compelling -- the set never develops its own momentum -- but it’s certainly worth a listen for the diehards, especially considering the scarcity of
Edmunds recordings after 1994’s
Plugged In.