Squeezin' & Pumpin'

Whereas the previous Field Guide was focusing on Watkins' vocal work and tracks released under his own name, this follow-up looks at his activities as ‘hired gun’!

Geraint has done loads of work as a studio musician, providing keyboards (both piano & organ) and/or accordion contributions.
No surprise then that the majority of the tracks here concern 50’s style Rock & Roll/Rockabilly and Cajun/Zydeco!
From well-known artists such as Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Paul McCartney, and Rory Gallagher, to somewhere over the years lost ones; Racing Cars, Juice On The Loose, Diz & The Doormen, and Laverne Brown…
Rockabilly revival bands - Crazy Cavan And The Rhythm Rockers, Stray Cats, The Shakin' Pyramids, and  Matchbox - all made good use of his piano pounding skills.
Other performers preferred his accordion skills, among them Gerry Rafferty, Freddie Steady's Wild Country, That Petrol Emotion, and John Wesley Harding.

I hope you enjoy this ramshackle (but surprisingly coherent) compilation!

Geraint Watkins - Recorded in Bop-A-Phonic

I have seen Geraint Watkins just once, when he was part of Dave Edmunds’ post Rockpile band, at the No Nukes Festival in Utrecht, 1982, excellent show.

Geraint did the vocals on Fine, Fine, Fine and played his accordion like a maniac, brilliant.

Besides that I had a copy of his 1979 Dominators album (with the much cooler Dutch cover!), which I played often, great collection of 50 Rock & Roll covers, as well as the Willie and The Poor Boys 1985 lp, which was basically a one-off fun project of Bill Wyman & Charlie Watts with some like minded musicians, incl. Andy Fairweather-Low, Mickey Gee, and Geraint himself.

Geraint played with lots of others, usually key boards and accordion, such as Nick Lowe, Van Morrison, Paul McCartney, Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, Mark Knopfler, Rory Gallagher, Carl Perkins, Tom Jones, Roger Daltrey and John Martyn, but also in Sweden (The Refreshments) and even in the Netherlands (Normaal).

Like Albert Lee (whom we featured here on JOKONKY as well), Geraint could have easily had a separate compilation for all his sideman activities but I decided to focus on his vocal work instead.

This compilation includes his some of his earliest recordings as the Geraint Watkins Band, The Balham Alligators, a collaboration with Andy Fairweather-Low, his solo Stiff Records single, 2 tracks of Willie and The Poor Boys, a collaboration with The Refreshments, another one with Martin Belmont, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings (singing Johnny Be Goode following The Balham Alligators’ version!), a few solo tracks and 2 special live ones; Easy to Say 'Bon Temps Rouler' on Later with Jools Holland (with Nick Lowe) and a great version of Heart Of The City with his band The Mosquitoes!