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Shakin' Stevens - You Drive Me Crazy

Shakin' Stevens

My only real exposure to Shakin' Stevens comes courtesy of his Christmas song "Merry Christmas Everyone," a truly festive earworm and one that seems to be in constant rotation on Christmas FM out of Ireland when they fire up for their annual broadcast in December.

I'm a sucker for rockabilly, and Shakin' Stevens was definitely channelling his inner Elvis Fonzarelli. Just take a look at that smirking, pompadour-sporting, Animal House-era Tim Matheson lookalike. Which is not a shot, not at all.

The album itself didn't have any notes, and likely didn't have any to begin with. You Drive Me Crazy is one of those strange North American releases that cobbled together songs from a few of his UK releases specifically to harvest the best tracks and hopefully make an impact with the duller and less sophisticated North American audiences. I'm sure that's not the case, but it would be nice to just have the albums intact to the artist's vision.

Regardless, there was nothing on the album to suggest it was a compilation. The record itself however shows a few years of copyright, which was my first clue. Regardless, this was what we got. It's hard to figure out what was actually released here in Canada, so I'll just assume this was his debut here, and while it didn't set the charts on fire, it at least cracked the Top 100. Who knows, maybe a year or two earlier, when bands like Rockpile and Stray Cats were in vogue, this would have been a big deal.

Shakin' Stevens was no joke, although I have to say the weird Elmer Fudd delivery on the title track was more distracting than cute. No one who says "You dwive me cwazy" is going to score with the ladies. Even Elmer had trouble catching Bugs.

Musically this is as much roots rock as it is rockabilly, with a dash of country, and definitely brings the '50s back with really clean production, vocals delivered with a curled lip, and some wicked twangy guitars. While there weren't any credits on my album, I looked around to see who was behind some of the songs and was pleasantly surprised to see Albert Lee listed as a lead player, as well as a gentleman named Mickey Gee. Not sure who did what, but their work was top shelf.

Shakin' Stevens

I will say I really got a kick out of "Revenue Man," but there were a lot of really solid tracks throughout the album, which kind of makes sense as the songs were cherry-picked from a few different albums. I also thought it was a pretty great group of songwriters he chose to cover, from Buck Owens on "Hot Dog" to Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Shotgun Boogie." He even made Dave Alvin's "Marie Marie" a hit in the UK.

He may not have gotten a fair shake over here in North America, which is too bad ... this was a pretty fun listen, and no doubt it'll come out from time to time and if I forget I'll be reminded in December when he starts showing up on Christmas FM.

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