Tibby Edwards was born in Garland, Louisiana in 1935. His thourough grip of cajun music, his native idom can be heard on C'est Ci Tout (see playlist) which he composed with his longtime co-wrier Leon Tassin.
Throughout the following years, he moved with his family to various locales throughout Louisiana & West Texas as his father, a construction worker, sought jobs wherever he could find them, As a teenager, he learned to sing his first songs & accompany himself on guitar. By the time he was 15 or 16, he'd fallen heavily under the influence of Roy Acuff, Lefty Frizzell, & Hank Williams all of whom were then beginning to dominate the national country charts. Around 1949, he met Lefty Frizzell. Lefty recognized his obvious talents & soon befriended him. For a number of years afterwood, Tibby became Lefty's musical protege. The two of them lived together, toured extensively together, & frequently sang together on stage.
"Lefty was number one back then" Tibby recalled "For some reason or another, we got to be buddies & he kind of halfway raised me. We toured together for quite a few years. This was back when Ray Price was still his front man. A lot of times, if Lefty had a new hit out, he'd call me up on stage in the middle of his show & have me sing it"
At one point in the mid-1950's Tibby toured California & Washington state with Lefty & appeared briefly on the legendary television show, Town Hall Party, In compton, California, along with other artists like Tex Ritter, Joe Maphis & The Collins Kids. After he & Lefty eventually parted ways, Tibby moved to Beaumont, Texas, there he sang in clubs frequently with other local talents like, George Jones & Benny Barnes. Tibby's version of "Play It Cool Man, Play It Cool" an early Jones original was released on Mercury on the flip side of "Shift Gears" (featured here) It was musical entrepeneur J.D. Miller who first bought Tibby & his fellow musical associate Jimmie C Newman to Nashville in 1953 to audition for the Mercury label, "They took me & turned Jimmie Newman down" he recalled in an interview to Bob Allen in 1985, "looking back on it now that might have been a mistake" During the next five years he completed a number of recording sessions for both Mercury & Starday labels. In December 1952, when he was just 17 years old, his career took another significant step when he landed membership on The Louisiana Hayride, a popular live country music show broadcasted by radio throught much of the nation, Tibby remained a member of the Hayride for the next 5 years, Veteran observers recall that he held the record, along with Hank Williams & Elvis Presley for the most encores recieved from a Hayride audience.
When the Rockabilly craze swept through the nation in the mid 50's, Tibby like most contry entertainers of the day was not immune to it, he cut a fine version of Joe Turner's "Flip Flop & Fly" in Nashville in August 1955 (included here) Tibby recalled "This was when Elvis showed up on the Scene" Tibby often appeared on the same Saturday night lineup as Elvis. "I introduced Elvis on the hayride, in fact, I'd been singing "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" & "That's Alright Mama" on the Hayride & I was tearing audiences up with them, it was maybe not so much because of my singing, but maybe just because people were ready for that change, I remember when Elvis & Bill & Scotty first came down to play the hayride, I was sharing a backstage dressing room with Johnny Horton, the first thing Elvis did was come up the stairs & introduce himself to me. He just wanted to thank me for singing his songs. it was a great honour" The 12 singles Mercury issued between 1953 & 1957 were cut at Owen Bradley's studios in Nashville, D. Kilpatrick (A&R man & staff producer for Mercury records, who later went on to succeed Jim Denny as manager of the Grand Ole Opry, produced these sessions & the backing was provided by Hank William's Original Drifting Cowboys, also on the session were Floyd Cramer on piano & Chet Atkins on rhythm guitar. In 1958 Tibby entered the Army, he was processed at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, within a few days of when Elvis was processed at the same facility. with his entry into the army this was efectively when his career came to an end, Starday released a 45 at the tail end of his Mercury output, this was also re-titled & re-released on the Mercury label, he also cut one 45 for Louisiana based Jin label & dissapeared from the music scene.
In 1985 Bear Family records issued a now tough to find LP containing 16 of his Mercury cuts, there has never been a follow up CD, This surely must be a future plan for release, most of the information above was taken from the excellent liner notes written by Bob Allen.
I do recall being told by another Country artist of the 1950's that Tibby died in the 90's of Cancer, Also I was told that in his later years he beacme a heavy drinker, I'm researching this as I write this & will update as I find more, but for now enjoy these tracks as a tribute to a great artist
G-MINUS-MARK 2006
