Ask a country music fan to name two black country
singers and instantly they'll answer Charlie Pride
and then perhaps pause as they have to think about
the second. We could go back as far as 1926 when harmonica
playing Deford Bailey performed his highly popular
"Pan American Blues" on the first show to
be named the Grand Ole Opry on WSM radio. Another
black artist that might come to mind is Big Al Downing
who sadly passed  away
in July 2005, just a few weeks before I wrote this
review. Stoney Edwards could very possibly be the
next choice after Charlie Pride!
Born in Oklahoma of Black, Cherokee and Irish
extraction, Frenchy Edwards grew up listening to country
music on the radio and in particular the music of
Bob Wills and the band's singer Tommy Duncan. Edwards
had vivid memories of standing at the roadside with
his six brothers and sisters watching Bob Wills' bus
go by and picking up the candy that the Texas Playboys
tossed to them. Encouraged to learn to play guitar
by his mother, Stoney sang country music all his life,
but never had any aspirations of taking it up as a
professional career untill he had an industrial accident
in 1969. Encouraged by Charlie Pride's success, Stoney
Edwards started his career singing in clubs and in
1970 was invited to play at a benefit for his musical
hero Bob Wills where he received three standing ovations
after singing Merle Haggard's "Mama's Hungry
Eyes".
In the audience was attorney Ray Sweeney who was
so moved by Edwards' performance that he contacted
him after the show and suggested that he made contact
with Capitol Records. Within a week Stoney had recorded
demos of "Cute Little  Waitress"
and "Two Dollar Toy"
the first song that he was inspired to write, after
seeing a little wind-up toy under his daughters arm
with its line "last night a two dollar toy made
a million dollar daddy out of me" and the Top
20. This heart wrenching true-life song was Edwards'
debut single in January 1971 and the first of fifteen
chart entries…later included on his second album She's
My Rock released in 1973.
A hard-core honky tonk singer, Stoney Edwards'
first two album releases are found on this 2on1 collection
from Britain's own Hux Records…digitally re-mastered
for your perfect listening pleasure and found on CD
for the very first time. The self-titled Stoney
Edwards album featured songs such as the opening
heart tearing "All She
Made Of Me" with plenty of weeping pedal
steel and followed by another song written by Jerry
Chestnut "Daddy Did His
Best" and later recorded by Porter Wagoner
and Dolly Parton. "You
Can't Call Yourself Country" offers more
excellent traditional country music fare. The  release
of Stoney's second album She's
My Rock included the hit singles "You're
a Believer" and of course "She's
My Rock" (his fourth and biggest single which stayed in
the Top 20 for almost four months), plus the
earlier mentioned "Two
Dollar Toy".
A soulful honky tonk singer who enjoyed a
devoted following, Stoney Edwards continued his
recording career untill 1990. Stoney died from cancer
in 1997. Though Charlie Pride was the bigger artist,
the much underrated Stoney Edwards certainly gave
Charlie a run for his money and I feel might just have
piped him at the post vocally. Don't let this superb
collection pass you by and miss the indescribable
magic that was Stoney Edwards!!!
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