DUANE EDDY ‘His Twangy Guitar And The Rebels’ (Capitol EST 2034)
Proving there’s still some life left in him, the latest LP from twangy guitar supremo Duane Eddy opens with ‘Kickin’ Asphalt’, which employs four guitarists and is basically a lot of fun. However, things begin to go downhill from there. Paul McCartney has produced the OK ‘Rockestra Theme’, which very much follows the style of his last ‘Press To Play’ album, and contains faintly embarassing singalong vocals. Jeff Lynne of ELO’s productions are unfortunately pretty bland (George Harrison is unrecognisable) making it all verge dangerously towards elevator music, and the final production team, Art Of Noise, get nowhere near as much out of Eddy as they did on ‘Peter Gunn’, nor do they come up with the weird sounds promised on the sleeve. ☆☆