Don Edwards (musician)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Don Edwards (born March 20, 1939 in Boonton , New Jersey ) is an American singer and actor. He is mainly dedicated to the traditional songs of the cowboys and is considered one of the most important contemporary representatives of western music . Some of his recordings have been placed in the Folklore Archives of the Library of Congress .

Life

Childhood and youth

Edwards' father worked as a magician in the vaudeville scene. Although he reduced his workload in favor of his family, he continued to appear in public. The young Don Edwards was confronted with show business and the most diverse musical influences from an early age, especially through his father's extensive record collection. He began teaching himself to play the guitar at the age of ten, and when he was 16 he left home to find work in the Texas oil fields or ranches.

He had always been particularly fascinated by the myth of the West and the world of the cowboys: he devoured the novels of the Canadian writer Will James and admired heroes on the screen like Tom Mix and Ken Maynard , but also singing cowboys like Gene Autry . During his teenage years, he moved around with rodeos and worked on various ranches in Texas and New Mexico . By his own account he was so eager to lead the awaited life of a cowboy that he initially even worked without pay: ". When I first came down to Texas, I worked for nothing, just to be a part of it" When in 1961 When the amusement park chain Six Flags opened their Park Six Flags over Texas, he got his first "real" job as an actor, stuntman and singer, which he kept for five years.

Career

In 1965 he went to Nashville to try his luck as a singer. However, his cowboy songs were no longer in demand at that time, he finally released an album with traditional songs and his own compositions on the independent label Stop , with moderate success. Edwards then went back to Texas and settled near Fort Worth , where he continued to work as a musician.

In 1980 he took on the album Happy Cowboy with the help of country DJ Larry Scott (not to be confused with the bodybuilder of the same name) , which he released on his own label Sevenshoux . He was supported by musicians who had already played with Gene Autry and the Sons of the Pioneers . In the mid-1980s, after attending the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada , he decided to record a tribute album for Jack Thorpe , a historian who at the turn of the century was one of the first to collect the traditional cowboys' songs. The Songs of the Cowboys , which comes with an accompanying book, has since been included in the “ Folklore Archives ” of the Library of Congress , as has his album Guitars & Saddle Songs .

Edward's big breakthrough came at the end of the 1980s when he was "discovered" in connection with the revival of western music; in the 1990s he was one of the figureheads of the then newly founded company, alongside Michael Martin Murphey and the Sons of the San Joaquin Warner Western Labels. After Warner ended his involvement in this genre in the late 1990s, Edwards founded the Western Jubilee label with other artists , which is devoted to traditional music outside the mainstream.

In 1993, he yodeled on Nanci Griffith's version of Night Rider's Lament , which was released on her Grammy Award-winning album Other Voices, Other Rooms .

A wider public Edwards has been through his role of Smokey alongside Robert Redford in the film The Horse Whisperer known (1998). He also contributed the song Coyotes to Werner Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man (2005) , which can be heard at the end of the film.

plant

Don Edwards is now considered one of the most important representatives of Western Music . Michael Martin Murphey called him "one of the finest pure cowboy singers I've ever heard" , Roy Rogers compared him to Marty Robbins and Bob Nolan . Edwards himself describes his music as " cowboy folk music ", which he defines as the traditional cowboy song that differs in style and content not insignificantly from the transfigured music of Gene Autry or Roy Rogers : "Western" music was the romantic West , Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Sons of the Pioneers, that was more of the romantic West. And then you had cowboy music, which was basically cowboy folk music, which came out of the old country and into the Appalachians and from the Cumberlands to the cow camps. " " Traditional cowboy music is basically a part of folk music. It 'pretty much songs that were collected from among cowboys. When I say 'cowboys', I mean working cowboys, not movie cowboys. "

He has also always resolutely disagreed with the country music category . He attached particular importance to the fact that his album High Lonesome Cowboy (2002), recorded with Peter Rowan , was nominated for a Grammy in 2003 in the category Best Traditional Folk Album instead of in the category Country . The same applies to the Traditional Album of the Year award , which he received in 1998 from the Association For Independent Music (the so-called Indie Award ) for his album Saddle Songs (Vol. 1).

In 2005, Don Edwards was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Western Music Association after receiving the Artist of the Year Award in 1997 and 1998 . He received the National Cowboy Hall of Fame's Western Heritage Wrangler Award for Outstanding Traditional Western Music in 1992 and 1996.

In April 2010, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum will present him with the Chester A. Reynolds Memorial Award , named after the museum's founder , which honors people who are particularly concerned with the ideals, history and legacy of the American West deserved.

Discography (selection)

  • 1980 Happy Cowboy
  • 1986 Songs of the Cowboy
  • 1992 Songs Of The Trail
  • 1993 Goin 'Back To Texas
  • 1994 The Bard and the Balladeer: Live from Cowtown (with Waddie Mitchell)
  • 1996 West Of Yesterday
  • 1997 Saddle Songs
  • 1998 Best Of Don Edwards
  • 1998 My Hero, Gene Autry: A Tribute
  • 1999 A Pair To Draw To
  • 2000 A Prairie Portrait
  • 2001 On the Trail (with Waddie Mitchell)
  • 2001 Kin To The Wind: Memories Of Marty Robbins
  • 2002 High Lonesome Cowboy
  • 2003 Last Of The Troubadours: Saddle Songs Vol. 2
  • 2004 High Lonesome Cowboy (with Peter Rowen)
  • 2006 Moonlight & Skies
  • 2009 Heaven on Horseback
  • 2011 American

literature

  • Slatta, Richard W .: The Cowboy Encyclopedia , WW Norton & Company , 1996, p. 246. ISBN 978-0-393-31473-1 .
  • Erlewine, Michael (ed.): All Music Guide to Country: The Experts' Guide to the best Recordings in Country Music , Hal Leonard Corporation, 1997, p. 140. ISBN 978-0-87930-475-1 .
  • Woolley, Bryan: T exas Road Trip: Stories from across the Great State and a few personal Reflections , TCU Press, 2004, pp. 219 ff. ISBN 978-0-87565-291-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Woolley, Bryan: Texas Road Trip: Stories from across the Great State and a few personal Reflections , TCU Press, 2004, p. 221. ISBN 978-0-87565-291-7
  2. ^ Weissman, Dick: Which Side Are You On ?: An Inside History of the Folk Music Revival in America , Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006, p. 213. ISBN 978-0-8264-1914-9
  3. ↑ Slatta, Richard W .: The Cowboy Encyclopedia , WW Norton & Company, 1996, p 246. ISBN 978-0-393-31473-1
  4. ↑ SCV NEWSMAKER OF THE WEEK: Don Edwards, Cowboy Singer Interview by Leon Worden, February 29, 2004.
  5. ^ Woolley, Texas Road Trip , p. 220.
personal data
SURNAME Edwards, Don
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer and actor
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Boonton , New Jersey