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1950s Radio in Color: The Lost Photographs of Deejay Tommy Edwards

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Description

A remarkable collection of photographs by one of rock’s early champions

IBPA/BEN FRANKLIN AWARD FINALIST 2012 IN COFFEE TABLE BOOKS – Between 1955 and 1960, popular Cleveland deejay Tommy Edwards photographed the parade of performers who passed through the WERE-AM radio studio for on-air interviews, shooting more than 1,700 Ektachrome slides. Following his death in 1981, a few of the collection vanished and was once presumed lost. The few images that remained were continuously reprinted and rarely credited to Edwards, labeled photographer unknown. Until now.

Discovered by musician Chris Kennedy in 2006, Tommy Edwards’s candid photographs capture the birth of rock ‘n’ roll at its flashpoint: Elvis Presley whilst he was once still dangerous; a raw and incomplete Chuck Berry before his star ascended; and some beady-eyed, high-voiced kid named Roy Orbison. It wasn’t just the architects of rock music whom Edwards had in his viewfinder. There were also pop and country music s biggest stars, mysterious, unknown hopefuls, and vulnerable, deglamourized Hollywood celebrities. Edwards’s passion for photography immortalized hundreds of pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll and pop culture in the radio studio, a setting that was once continuously unseen. His photos offer a rare look at the back of a closed door.

In 2009, Kennedy located the only surviving copy of the T.E. Newsletter collection, Tommy Edwards’s self-published weekly two-page recap of Cleveland radio and record news for music business insiders, spanning from 1953 through 1960. The wealth of information and dates contained in the newsletters are the photo collection’s indispensable companion piece, and Edwards’s anecdotal quips are interspersed during the text of the book.

1950s Radio in Color gives Tommy Edwards his due recognition as the deejay responsible for perhaps a very powerful photographic and written documentation of twentieth-century music ever produced. Featuring over 200 color photographs, this book will transport readers back in time, letting them step into Edwards’s shoes for a moment and to feel the wonder and excitement he will have to have felt each day whilst witnessing a cultural revolution.

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