Edwards was featured a couple of times in Theatre Magazine in the ‘teens.  We see him here in the August 1919 issue, rehearsing for “Greenwich Village Nights” — which soon changed its name to “Greenwich Village Follies,” thereby enraging Flo Ziegfeld.

The August 1917 issue carried an article called “The Renaissance of Greenwich Village,” by one Ada Patterson.  She seems quite taken with our troubadour:

“But perhaps the village’s most picturesque figure is ‘Bobbie’ Edwards, ‘the Irving Berlin of Greenwich Village.’  A tall, pale, young man, Bobbie Edwards wears the garb of an average New Yorker, but to Polly’s, to the Dutch Oven, the Black Cat, and to other restaurants typical of ‘Village’ life, he goes to sing his songs.  Once an illustrator, he has dropped the crayon for the score.  He accompanies his songs upon an instrument which he himself makes, in his studio in South Washington Square, and which he adorns in brilliant colors, the greens and reds and purples of the impressionistic school.

“‘Be sure to save your cigar boxes for Bobbie Edwards,’ may be heard any night in many restaurants of New York’s Montmartre.

“Presently the pale young man walks to the desk of the cigar counter and with smile and bow collects the empty receptacles of the weed.  He will carry them to his studio and rapidly fashion them into replicas of the Hawaiian musical instrument, which, lighter toned than the cigar guitar, still resembles it.”

So that’s where those cigar boxes came from!  Another Village celebrity, Romany Marie, used to accuse him of buying the ukes from a manufacturer, and then simply painting them.  But we’ll hear from her tomorrow.

Incidentally, Edwards was also active in the little theater movement, not just in restaurants and revues.  He acted in productions of the Washington Square Players and the Provincetown Players.  For Harry Kemp’s Poet’s Theater (which lasted from 1925 all the way to 1926), he wrote a play called “Paraloxyn”; and composed music for Kemp’s comedy “The Game Called Kiss.”

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

This postcard, by Jesse Tarbox Beals, was sold in the Village to fans of “The Village Troubadour.”  I suppose that’s the “rustic shirting” Woollcott mentioned in the review I cited earlier.  And it serves as a suitable illustration for another description of Edwards at work — although, in this excerpt, we find him not playing his uke.

Mary Carolyn Davies acted in the Provincetown Players with Edwards.  And she also wrote a novel, The Husband Test, which was published in 1921.  Her characters encounter Bobby in Chapter Ten:

“A lanky man with tortoise shell glasses, which gave him a whimsical, arresting appearance, had come in, carrying a ukulele painted in village colors with a startling cat, and a sort of mixed up totem pole effect.

“‘Good!  It’s Bobby Edwards!’ explained a Spanish-looking novelist opposite Bettina.

“‘He makes them out of cigar boxes,’ he added, seeing her eyes on the cat.

“‘Have you heard Bobby Edwards sing?’ Nessa asked her.

“‘He never really says anything shocking in his songs, but he always looks as if he were on the verge of it.  So people sit about hoping.  For hours.’

“The room had grown silent.  Hoping.

“But Bobby Edwards seemed unaware of the presence of anyone save the two or three cronies about him.

“He raised the ukulele casually.

“The room caught its breath.

“He laid it down again.

“The room sighed sadly.

“‘Oh, why doesn’t someone make him!’  Betty was savage with desire.

“‘You can’t make him do anything,’ said the novelist dolefully.  ‘He’s an artist.'”

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

We had a look earlier at Bodenheim’s fictional portrayal of Edwards.  There’s a more flattering assessment in this putative memoir from 1954, published soon after Bodenheim’s murder.  Since the book was actually written by Samuel Roth and David George Kin, from Bodenheim’s unfinished notes, it’s hard to say who’s responsible for what follows.

At any rate, the book opens with two pages of Bobby:

“During the middle and late twenties in Greenwich Village, many unique characters flourished.  Among them was jaunty, bald, string-bean Bobby Edwards and his cigar-box ukeleles which he made and painted in gaudy abstract designs.  When he was not being impish or professionally clowning, Bobby had a personality so shy that it almost flirted with diffidence.  His alcoholic imbibing was limited to a very occasional glass of beer or wine.”

After a few anecdotes about Edwards’ verbal sparring with hecklers and other Villagers, and an excerpt from his song “The Sultan’s Wives,” the portrait concludes with his response to an admiring (and drunk) young woman, who had staggered onstage to paw him.

“‘Thanks a million,’ Bobby replied.  ‘I’d like to tell you how I feel toward you too, darling, but I could only make such a confession privately.’

“‘Privately?  Why, honey?’

“‘Because the words I would use regarding the exhibition that you’re putting on would be so sore and off color that I couldn’t possibly say them in front of an audience,’ Bobby replied, with his invariable, nicely-balanced and coolly self-possessed grin.

“The tuxedo-clad escort of the girl, who had followed her and was watching close behind with clenched fists, relaxed and hauled his tipsy lady off the floor and back to their table.

“It must not be surmised that Bobby had spoken as he did from any fear of the close-by male.  Men who were deceived by Bobby’s subdued manners and gentlemanly poise and strove to insult, push, or annoy him, promptly felt the hefty sting of his right uppercut or left jab.”

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Another of Edwards’ signature songs was a brief ditty called “One O’Clock.”  According to Ralph Bartholomew’s Souvenir Book of Greenwich Village (1920), it became somewhat of a tradition:

And here is Edwards’ embellished manuscript of his composition:

And, for good measure, here’s a clip of Carmen Borgia and me performing it at a Ukulele Cabaret.  We tried to give it that full 1 am flavor.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Clement Wood contributed two booklets about Greenwich Village to the long-running series of Little Blue Books published by Haldeman-Julius.  The first, Bohemian Life in N.Y.’s Greenwich Village (1926), describes several of the area’s personalities, mostly in rather peevish style.  He’s none too keen on Edwards, but, as he admits, it may be his own fault.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Edwards not only played cigar box ukes; he made and sold them.  His first efforts, I believe, were created for a production number in a revue.  They were brightly painted (the Edwards color sense was always loud); and, judging from contemporary accounts, sounded pretty good.

I’ve often wondered if any of those instruments survive.  So far, I’ve found nothing.  Meanwhile, here are some of his designs.  He often decorated his scores and drawings with uke sketches; he even put one on the front cover of The Quill.  The ones following are from his 1917 Song Book.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

In 1922, Edwards appeared in the revue “A Fantastic Fricassee.”  Alexander Woollcott, then drama critic for the New York Times, singled him out as one of the highlights:

“An enchanting little marionette show and some diverting lyrics by one Robert Edwards, said to be the Greenwich Village cut-up — those two items constitute the oases in the proceedings instituted last evening at the Greenwich Village Theatre…

“Mr. Edwards, faithful to the village in that he carries a ukulele and wears a bit of rustic shirting, has several charming songs.  There is one done in the manner of an Arabian lament which runs something like this:

“The Sultan’s wives
Have got the hives
Oh, Allah, be merciful!
The Sultan’s laundress
Has the jaundice,
Oh, Allah, be reasonable!

“And then he had another elegiac piece.  It avers that he wearies of ‘Greenwich Village flappers in their dirty batik wrappers,’ and is sung in memory of a ‘sweetie from Tahiti.'”

This production, by the way, was also noted for featuring the young Jeanette MacDonald; and for being prevented from appearing before the inmates at Sing Sing, due its underdressed dance numbers.

A few years before that, Edwards performed in the first edition of the “Greenwich Village Follies,” which went on to become more commercial (and to have less and less to do with the Village) in its later incarnations. Again, the Times (this time an anonymous critic) gave particular attention to Edwards (7/16/19):

“There were several specialty numbers that made a hit last night. Cecil Cunningham was on twice with songs, and Bobby Edwards, who may be described as the real Greenwich Villager in the ‘Greenwich Village Follies,’ made musical comments aided by a well-tamed toy guitar. Each had a hard time getting off the stage.”

I assume that the last sentence meant that Edwards was called back for encores, not he overstayed his welcome. And note that the representative of the paper of record couldn’t identify a cigar-box uke; it was ever thus.

Edwards was the M.C. in this show; his big number was “Why Be an Industrial Slave When You Can Be Crazy?”

(Posted by Doug Skinner. The self-portrait with adoring fans is from his 1917 Song Book.)

Edwards shows up as a character in this rackety 1933 novel by that other (and considerably darker) Village personality, Maxwell Bodenheim.  Despite the fictional name Bodenheim bestows on our troubadour, this may be an accurate description of Edwards at work.  The lyrics, at any rate, are lifted from genuine Edwards songs.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Much to my surprise, I found this charcoal sketch at the flea market last weekend.  The artist, Edward C. Caswell, frequently sketched Village subjects.  Edwards is seen here as a sidewalk sketch artist at an outdoor art show.  A note accompanied it: “This was drawn in Macdougal Alley and Macdougal St.  Bobby had just told me to get back a little as I might be in the way of possible sitters.  When I remarked that he could raise the price, he replied that he would rather make portraits at 85c than none for 1.00!”

The sketch is undated, but my uneducated guess is that it’s from sometime in the ’30s.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I’ve long been interested in the career of Bobby Edwards, who played and made ukuleles in Greenwich Village in the ‘teens and ‘twenties, and established himself as one of the Village’s most conspicuous and colorful personalities.

I haven’t been able to dig up much biographical information.  I know that he was born in Buffalo in 1879, and died in New York City in 1948.  He graduated from Harvard in 1901, and attended Chase Art School; and worked for a while as an illustrator.  He then settled in the Village to pursue a merry, disorganized career as a sometime artist, performer and writer — and full-time Bohemian.  He advertised himself as “Maker of the Ukalyptos, Second Cousin of the Ukulele.  Painting, Poetry, Movie Acting, Music, Singing, Illustrating and General Art Work Neatly Done.  Also Contracts Taken to Make Restaurants Famous.  Terms for Singing at Parties on Application.  Also Portrait Photography.”

He edited the quintessential Village magazine, The Quill (from which the above promotion was taken), and filled its pages with verses, songs, gossip, and photos of his cats romping through his famously cluttered studio.  He also contributed to The Masses, Broadway Brevities, and other periodicals.

But he was best known for his performances in clubs and revues, where he sang his comic songs, strumming a brightly painted cigar box uke.  He not only made the uke himself, but turned out others to sell to tourists.

His signature tune was “The Greenwich Village Epic,” a sprawling satire which apparently everyone then living in the Village added to.  (I posted all the verses I could find, as well as the official Edwards history of it, back here on 3/30/10.)

He was a somewhat controversial figure: many entrenched Villagers were serious artists, and bridled at his frivolity, and at his promotion of the Village as a Boho playground.

In the next few posts, I’ll air some of the material I’ve collected on him.  Ukulele and Village history buffs, watch this space!

(Posted by Doug Skinner.  The first photo is taken from The Song Book of Robert Edwards (1917); the second from Souvenir Book of Greenwich Village (by Ralph Bartholomew, 1920).)