In 1896, Edwards was 17 years old and appearing at Johnny Palmer's Gaiety Saloon in
Brooklyn, when James Hyde, a vaudeville agent, saw him performing. He booked a tour for Edwards and four other boys as The Newsboys Quintet act. In 1898, while performing in this act, Edwards wrote his first song, to a lyric by
Tom Daly, "All I Want is My Black Baby Back". Edwards could not write music at that time, so he hired
Charles Previn to write down the notes.
May Irwin sang the song in her act, and helped to popularize it. While entertaining soldiers at Camp Black, during the Spanish–American War, Edwards met lyricist
Will Cobb, and they formed "Words and Music", a partnership that lasted for many years. He was a vaudeville singer, and later had his own vaudeville company. He discovered
Walter Winchell,
Elsie Janis,
George Jessel,
Eddie Cantor,
Groucho Marx,
Phil Silvers,
Lila Lee,
Georgie Price,
Eleanor Powell,
Hildegarde,
Ray Bolger,
Sally Rand,
Jack Pearl, the
Lane Sisters, and
Ina Ray Hutton. He wrote the Broadway stage scores for "When We Were Forty-One", "Hip Hip Hooray", "The Merry-Go-Round", "
School Days", "Ziegfeld Follies of 1910", "Sunbonnet Sue", and "Show Window". He founded the Gus Edwards Music Hall in New York, and also his own publishing company, then produced special subjects for films, and returned to vaudeville between 1930 and 1937, finally retiring in 1939. His chief musical collaborators included
Edward Madden,
Will Cobb, and
Robert B. Smith. His other popular-song compositions include "Meet Me Under the Wisteria", "
By the Light of the Silvery Moon", "I Can't Tell You Why I Love You but I Do", "Goodbye, Little Girl, Goodbye", "I Just Can't Make My Eyes Behave", "I'll Be With You When the Roses Bloom Again", "He's My Pal", "Way Down Yonder in the Cornfield", "In Zanzibar", "If a Girl Like You Loved a Boy Like Me", "Jimmy Valentine", "If I Were a Millionaire", "Laddie Boy" and "
In My Merry Oldsmobile". Some other songs include "America Never Took Water and America Never Will", "Au Revoir", "Good Bye and Luck Be with You Laddie Boy", "He Long and Lean and Lanky", "Keep on A-Going", "Mothers of Men" and "My Rainbow Ribbon Girl".
Radio In the 1930s, Edwards had a weekly program,
School Days of the Air, on
KFWB in Los Angeles, California.
Family Edwards was the brother of composer
Leo Edwards, music publisher and talent agent
Ben Edwards, and vaudeville singer Dorothea Edwards. He was the uncle of
Joan Edwards and Jack Edwards.
Film Bing Crosby played Edwards in a fictionalized version of his life in the
1939 film The Star Maker, directed by
Roy Del Ruth. Edwards himself made few screen appearances, the most notable being
The Hollywood Revue of 1929, in which he performs as part of a vaudeville act. He also wrote all the music for
The Hollywood Revue of 1929, as credited in the closing credits of the production, with the exception of "
Singin' in the Rain" with lyrics by
Arthur Freed and music by
Nacio Herb Brown. He also performs a specialty number: "
Lon Chaney's Gonna Get You If You Don't Watch Out".
Recognition Edwards was a founding member of
ASCAP in 1914 and was inducted into the
Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. ==Personal life and death==