Chuck Edwards – Bullfight
Chuck Edwards
Listen/Download – Chuck Edwards – Bullfight MP3
Greetings all.
Today we return to the catalog of one of my favorite soul artists, one who was covered at length back in the webzine days, the mighty Chuck Edwards.
Edwards, who was a Pittsburgh, PA institution until he relocated his family and his career to California, is best known for the incredible ‘Downtown Soulville’, one of the truly great records of the classic era.
Edwards had a long discography stretching back into the 1950s on labels like Apollo, Duke, Rene (his own imprint), Roulette, Punch and Kapp.
Though he never had any significant R&B or Pop chart success, today’s selection was an important regional hit in and around Pittsburgh.
‘Bullfight’, released in 1966, first on Rene, and the picked up for national distribution by Roulette made it into the Top 20 on local radio.
It’s important to take a minute to talk about the unique local music scene in Pittsburgh in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Spearheaded by local DJs like Mad Mike and Porky Chedwick, tons of otherwise obscure R&B, soul, garage or rock records became regional classics in Western PA while making almost no noise anywhere else. These have been collected over the years on a number of locally released compilations, and had an influence on local bands, who ended up covering some of these songs (as in Pittsburgh’s Swamp Rats covering tunes by Seattle’s Sonics).
Some of these compilations have been in print on and off for almost 50 years, and still change hands today.
‘Bullfight’, which features Edwards guitar prominently (as well as the repeated cry of ‘Hey Dino!’ which also appears in the 1969 sequel ‘Bullfight #2’) and chugs along at a brisk pace, yet only clocks in at an extremely brief 1:49!
Even at this late date, Edwards classic recordings have yet to be compiled, and his remains fairly obscure outside of collector circles (and Pittsburgh…).
Hopefully someone will get on the ball, because there’s a lot of very cool stuff in his catalog.
I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you all on Wednesday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Themocracy
Fun! — thanks, Jon
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Larry, thanks for keeping the legacy and music of my dad alive and well. My brothers and i are planning a compilation release of my dad’s music, of which there is much. Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have regarding the life and/or music of my Father, Chuck Edwards. We miss him still…. Thanks again…..