From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Mon Feb 17, 2003  1:23 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Tommy Edwards

TOMMY EDWARDS (By Phil Davies)

Born Thomas Edwards, 17 February 1922, Richmond, Virginia
Died 22 October 1969, Henrico County, Virginia

Edwards was a singer-pianist with a velvety smooth vocal style in the Nat
King Cole/Ivory Joe Hunter mode. He started entertaining around Richmond at
age nine, and eventually played piano and sang on his own radio program.
After writing Louis Jordan's hit "That Chick's Too Young to Fry," (r & b
#3 ) Edwards moved to New York City in 1949, where he worked performing
demos of other writers' songs and cut his first unsuccessful sides for the
Top label. His move to MGM in 1950 yielded his first R&B chart entries, "All
Over Again" and "The Morning Side of the Mountain." He even had a hit in 52
with a cover of You Win Again (#13). He was partial to country music long
before Ray Charles, he even covered Hank Snow's great A Fool Such As I.

Seven years passed without a hit, but then Edwards and producer Harry
Myerson added a rock arrangement to a song he had first recorded in 1951,
"It's All in the Game." Besides being the only #1 hit ever co-written by a
former U.S. Vice President (Charles Dawes, who served under Calvin
Coolidge), the 1958 easy-listening single "It's All in the Game" was one of
the few records of the rock 'n' roll era that both kids and parents could
agree on.

MGM wanted a stereo lp to promote and Monty Craft asked Tommy to re-record
It's All In The Game in the new format. The huge success of the single meant
he could repay all the loans that had kept him going in the hard times in
the mid 50s, when he was reduced to playing piano in cocktail lounges to
make ends meet. He travelled around music offices on Broadway and the Brill
Building paying back debts to friends in the music biz after his biggest
hit ( 6 weeks at #1) eventually sold 3.5 million copies. Both Cliff and the
Four Tops had later chart success with the song. Edwards followed up with a
series of lesser hits such as "Please Love Me Forever" (which Bobby Vinton
later covered), "Love Is All We Need," "Please Mr. Sun," and "New in the
Ways of Love."

Then he turned to country: 1960's "I Really Don't Want to Know," "Don't
Fence Me In," and "It's Not the End of Everything" were as smooth and
affecting as anything he had ever done, but subsequent releases faltered.
Experimental LPs, featuring Hawaiian and string-oriented sounds, did nothing
to reverse his downward career spiral. He died on October 22nd 1969 in his
hometown of Richmond Virginia. No cause of death was published but friends
say that alcoholism took its toll. His star had faded so much that there
were no major obituaries in the US press or even Billboard. The trivia
question, "Which artist had a number 1 hit co- written by an American Vice
president?" is not a bad epitaph though. Many a tear has to fall - - -

Thanks again to Dochoch, All Music Guide and Fred Bronson's cd notes.

Recommended Listening:
It's All In The Game -Complete Hits Of Tommy Edwards - Eric Records cd

16 of the 20 tracks are in true stereo from the original master tapes, also
includes the two 1951 hits.