Who'd have ever thunk it--a Friday Night Jukebox on a Friday, and on time....
As I've noted a time or two, I managed a music store on the east side of St. Louis (also known as Illinois), and of all the places I've lived, it had some of the oddest fan favorites when it came to music. Many big cities have local faves--Cleveland and the Michael Stanley Band immediately comes to mind--but most of the artists St. Louis folks liked were not locals. Sammy Hagar, Head East, Humble Pie, and Mountain all sold a lot more records in St. Louis than across the country in our other stores. It was probably the only place (except maybe Chicago) where music stores would get regular requests for Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah's "Lake Shore Drive." And, though it's not our song of the week, this week's artist had quite a few requests for his song "Shanty," an ode to smoking weed released a loooonnnngggg time before it became legal. In a nutshell, this week's artist will always be a reminder of a place I dearly loved to live--St. Louis....
His St. Louis favorite notwithstanding, Jonathan Edwards built quite a career out of one hit single. Born in 1946 in the great state of Minnesota, Edwards began playing piano by ear when he was eight and also started singing in the church choir. By the time he was a teen he had taught himself guitar and had begun performing on stage. He would play in several bands for the next few years before moving to Boston and going solo in the early seventies. Signed to Capricorn Records, he released his debut which brought him a top five hit single and paved the way for the rest of his career. In addition to touring regularly, Edwards has done some acting, as well as writing scores for films. Despite the fact that he never got another sniff of commercial success after his first LP, Edwards has managed to release fourteen studio albums (the latest in 2021), five live albums, and seven singles over the last fifty-four years. He continues to tour to this day.
"Sunshine" was the first single from his debut album, the rather clerically named Jonathan Edwards. The song would reach #4 (with a bullet) on the Billboard Hot 100 and sell over a million copies. The album did not chart in America, but did manage to hit #40 in Australia (so many cool kids Down Under!).
Fun Fact: "Sunshine" was not planned to be released as a single. However, because an engineer accidentally erased the master of the single he was planning to release ("Please Find Me"), "Sunshine" was used in its stead. Probably the most lucrative mistake a musical engineer has ever made....
Most likely because no matter how hard I try I'll never learn everything, before I did my half-assed research for this week I had no idea "Sunshine" was an anti-Vietnam War song. Always thought it was a "My Boss Sucks" song, trying to stick it to the man. Nevertheless, Edwards plays a bitchin' acoustic guitar (emaycee fave!), delivers an impassioned vocal, and makes the most musically of his one moment of greatness. By the way, all of this in two minutes and nineteen seconds. Finally, as I listened to it again and again this week, it dawned on me how fresh the song sounded--like it could have been recorded in 2025. One supposes if you're going to have just the one hit, you might as well do it up right--and Jonathan Edwards most certainly did.
Lyric Sheet: [Writer's Aside: Thought these lyrics were apropos for the time we are living through right now.] "Sunshine, come on back another day/I promise you I'll be singing/This old world, she's gonna turn around/Brand new bells will be ringing..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
No comments:
Post a Comment