From Small Town Music Capitol to the world
Photo courtesy of Jeff Edwins
Though they live in different areas across the country, the Edwinses are a close-knit family that jumps at the chance to get together – in person or via Zoom. Here, Irene, center, is surrounded by her children. Pictured clockwise, from front left, are Charlene, Les, Myron, Jeff and Ron Edwins.
Image courtesy Jeff Edwins
For the Edwinses, family is first and although the siblings have embarked on successful solo careers, they are excited The Edwards Generation was sampled by Dr. Dre and others for the track ETA. This photo of the brothers was taken by Jeff’s son Aaron Edwins. Pictured from left are Myron, Ron, Les and Jeff.
From the Small Town Music Capitol of the World to the radio waves went Perry Como, Bobby Vinton and The Edwards Generation.
The latter, an enduring family music group whose career started softly in a Canonsburg Polish Club, built at gigs in Pittsburgh and New York City, and reached a crescendo at Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, is once again taking center stage. Their 1976 track, “You’re the One for Me,” was sampled by Dr. Dre for his latest release, ETA, which debuted in the online Grand Theft Auto V game, The Contract, Dec. 15.
“They’re using the actual performance that we did in 1976,” said Les Edwins, The Edwards Generation drummer who released the single, “It’s Christmas!”, last holiday season. “They didn’t really change much. That was really an honor for us, to hear all of our individual tracks. It’s really great to be able to hear the song redone over again, but not changed to such a degree that you don’t even know what song it is.”
Dr. Dre – known globally as a rapper, music producer, and the genius behind Beats by Dre headphones – isn’t the first renowned artist to sample The Edwards Generation. The group’s music has been repurposed by at least 12 hip-hop rappers including Knxwledge., who collaborated with Silk Sonic’s Anderson .Paak. And last year, the up-and-coming Irish artist For Those I Love (who’s signed to Adele’s manager’s label) sampled “You’re the One for Me.”
“If you listen to his version … you’re going to hear elements from our song. He made it more of an electronic kind of a soundtrack; he took our vocals and he twisted it up. I, personally, love what (he) did,” said Myron Edwins, the group’s bassist. “It kind of doesn’t sound so much like our song. You can tell it’s in there, but it’s so different. Now with the Dre version, they paid homage to us, the entire Edwards Generation.”
The Edwards Generation, which has been performing since any of the siblings can remember, has a rich history to which to pay homage. Jeff, Myron, Les, Charlene and Ron Edwins were born into music; indeed, God, family and music are the threads that weave the family together.
Their father, Charles “Chuck” Edwins, was a highly regarded vocalist and musician known throughout the greater Pittsburgh region and beyond as Chuck Edwards (Edwards, he thought, sounded more professional). The Canonsburg man recorded songs for Duke and Apollo records and, in 1959, was joined by the Five Crowns – including Ben E. King – on two tracks produced by Alanna records.
“We heard music constantly,” said Myron. “Our mom was always singing around the house. We’d wake up, come downstairs, she’d be in the kitchen making breakfast … just singing. Our father had his own band – various musicians would come into our home. We had an opportunity to watch them perform.”
Chuck and Irene, who goes by Rene, never pushed their kids to pick up instruments – the Edwinses simply gravitated toward music. They spent many happy times in their family living room in Canonsburg, where Chuck taught and Rene cheered her children’s progress.
“I remember us sitting together inside our living room, playing. Before we ever learned how to play a song from start to finish, my dad would stop us and tell us the different notes,” recalled Myron. “He spent lengthy times with us, just getting that theory into us. When we started learning our instruments better, songs started sounding better. That’s when it started getting really fun.”
Jeff said the family learned standards – “We would rehearse until our fingers were bleeding,” he remembered – before graduating to Chuck’s music library. It wasn’t long before the family began making appearances at local bars.
“One of the things that most people don’t realize, or don’t even know: the confidence that my dad had in me and my brothers,” said Les, who was 6 years old when his father asked him to take the stage at a Pittsburgh club.
“I’m 6 years old. My dad and his band … they were playing jazz, the blues. And here we’ve got a 6-year-old kid up there playing drums because his drummer got sick,” Les said.
That confidence carried the Edwinses onto stage at the Polish Club in Canonsburg and in other area bars and clubs.
“I can remember our first paying gig as being a performance on the Gateway Clipper party liner. It was for a prom,” said Jeff. “It was the first gig that I can remember us playing professionally, where we actually got paid, it was as The Edwards Generation. I was in junior high.”
The family band was a hit, known throughout the region as Pittsburgh’s Jackson 5. From Canonsburg, the group traveled to Greenwich Village, where other big names like Bob Dylan, Norah Jones and Barbara Streisand got their big breaks, to perform at The Top of the Gate.
“That was actually the start,” said Jeff. “That led to a repeat performance in New York City at Lincoln Center. Not only that, we actually got a recording contract from a record company. That led to our first record ever being released in the Pittsburgh area.”
“Someone Like You” was wildly popular, and the family set off for Los Angeles, where Chuck hoped The Edwards Generation would find national success.
The trip turned out to be life-altering, “our Cali vacation that turned into a vay-cay-stay-cay,” laughed Jeff.
On their way home from L.A. to Canonsburg, Chuck announced to his family that he wanted to see San Francisco before returning east.
“I can hear him now, Pops started singing, ‘I left my heart in San Francisco,'” said Charlene. “He wanted to stop in San Francisco. That’s how we ended up in San Francisco. The guys … started performing in San Francisco, then went onto the Wharf. Where would we be without Pops?”
San Francisco became “home” to the Edwins family, who earned their living as street performers along Fisherman’s Wharf. The exposure propelled their career forward. The family drew enormous crowds with their acoustic performances – Les on drums, Ron on maracas, Myron and Jeff dancing and joining their father and his cowbell on vocals, Charlene often appearing in the show – and were invited to perform on the internationally beloved “Mike Douglas Show.”
“The cover of our album, In San Francisco The Street Thang, was actually taken while we were performing on the ‘Mike Douglas Show,'” said Jeff, who recalled the family’s street-performing days with a smile.
“It was fun, it was time-consuming. We put in a lot of hard work. We had huge crowds that would come down just to see us play. We were probably the top act in San Francisco at the time,” Jeff said. “I think what was the most fun about it was seeing people from all over the world, San Francisco being a metropolitan city. It’s also a tourist city.”
Tourists returned home, and The Edwards Generation toured; they played in Europe and Japan, and were pleasantly surprised to find their own faces staring back at them from the pages of MONO Magazine in Seoul, Korea.
Another time while overseas, “Young girls, they came up to us, they had a picture of us at the Wharf,” laughed Ron.
Music has given The Edwards Generation a lifetime of purpose and memories, and while the family continues to perform together, each sibling has a successful solo career and supports the others’ endeavors.
Les entertains crowds on Fisherman’s Wharf and in May released the single, “Fight of Your Life.” Ron is an artist and producer at Swift Kick Productions; last year, he released a single, “It’s Christmastime.”
Jeff earlier this year released his second solo album, Just Another Day, along with a single dedicated to his mother called, simply, “Irene.”
Myron is a songwriter and producer who owns MEP Entertainment/RichMoist Productions; his 2019 single ST FRANCIS spent six weeks at No. 1 on ReverbNation’s charts. Charlene lives in Austin, where she works and still pursues music, and Rene, the matriarch, still owns Tight Records.
“They’re amazing musicians,” said Charlene.
Each Edwins has dozens of accolades to their name, but while they have enjoyed awards, honors and successes of their own (including Super Bowl party appearances, BMA awards and chart-topping songs), The Edwards Generation remains a loving, down-to-earth family with strong ties to their hometown, visiting Canonsburg and playing old haunts any time their schedules allow.
“I’m very proud of my family,” said Rene. “They were wonderful children. They’re businessmen. They’re wonderful musicians. They’re really good at what they’re doing.”
What they’re doing is something they’ll continue doing: creating. The most recent sampling of The Edwards Generation is in a way another tie that binds the family together. The group is thrilled to have “You’re the One for Me” repurposed by Dre, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Anderson .Paak and others.
“The music we did was so real. We went into the studio and we played those tracks. What you hear is what we actually did – there’s nothing overproduced,” said Les. “If you notice, a lot of rap groups are starting to recognize that that music, that’s the music they want now. They’re starting to bring that old-school sound back. What we’re looking at with the Dre thing, you got old school with new school and that’s what makes it really cool.”
Les’s mother, sister and brothers agreed.
“We’ve been around for a long time. This is now a God’s blessing for all the years that we’ve been working together as a family,” said Jeff. “It’s an excellent opportunity now for a lot of people around the world to finally understand our music, what we’ve been doing. It gives us an opportunity to have the global world all of a sudden know who The Edwards Generation is. To be part of that is very exciting.”