Henrico-born singer made it big, faded away

Tommy Edwards may be the best-known local singer most people have never heard of.

If you were around in the 1950s, though, you were probably singing his song.

The Henrico County-born balladeer's version of "It's All in the Game" was the No. 1 hit in the country for six weeks in 1958. His earlier recording of the song had reached No. 18 in 1951.

He made television appearances on the "Dick Clark Saturday Night Beech Nut Show," "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Your Hit Parade."

And then he faded away.

By the time Donald W. Gunter, now 62, moved from Roanoke to Richmond in 1977, "I was surprised that it wasn't better known among Virginians that we had a singer with a million-record song," he said.

"Even Richmonders weren't aware that Tommy was from this area. Here was a guy who was internationally known, but a lot of people didn't know he was from Henrico County."

Gunter set out to change that. He has succeeded in at least two respects since he joined the staff of the Library of Virginia in 1987.

As assistant editor of the Dictionary of Virginia Biography, he wrote about Tommy Edwards for the not-yet-published fourth volume of the library's biography series after finding Edwards' name on the master list.

Working with the library's historical marker program, Gunter also got a Tommy Edwards highway marker installed recently in front of Pemberton Elementary School, a short distance from where Edwards is buried in Quioccasin Baptist Church's cemetery in Henrico.

In the course of his research, Gunter has accumulated seven boxes of material on the singer, ranging from copies of Billboard and Variety magazines to more than 100 recordings of Edwards' songs.

"In the beginning, I worked on the biography," Gunter said. "It became a personal pursuit."

Thomas Jefferson Edwards was born in Henrico on Oct. 15, 1922, and died there at age 47 on Oct. 23, 1969.

He went to New York in 1946 as a songwriter. His first success, "That Chick's Too Young to Fry," was recorded by Louis Jordan. Others who recorded his songs include Tony Bennett, Red Foley and Tony Fontane.

But Edwards didn't write the song that catapulted him to No. 1 status.

"It's All in the Game" began as "Melody in A Minor" written in 1911 by Charles G. Dawes, a businessman and amateur composer who served as U.S. vice president under Calvin Coolidge from 1925 to 1929. After lyrics were added by Carl Sigman in 1951, Edwards was one of several singers who recorded it.

Edwards charted several songs in the ensuing two years, but by the mid-'50s, his career was flagging. In 1958, he had only one more recording session left on his contract with MGM when the label asked him to update "It's All in the Game" with a rock 'n' roll backbeat. It sold 3 million copies.

The next two years were his most successful, with 13 more songs on the charts, but by 1961-62 he had stopped recording. In 1967, he came back home to Henrico and was living with his sister, Gunter said.

"He was pretty broke by this time," Gunter said. "He was drinking too much. I think there was a depression."

When Edwards died in 1969, he was buried without a headstone.

The gravesite is another thing Gunter has worked on. He located surviving members of Edwards' family in North Carolina, including an 87-year-old sister, about the time they learned they were due more than a quarter-million dollars in royalties from Edwards' music. Some of that money paid for a granite stone at the gravesite last summer.

Gunter is still trying to spread the word, but he's feeling better about Edwards' legacy.

"I wanted some permanent commemoration of his career in music," Gunter said. "He was one of Virginia's most successful recording artists."

Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or .