Editing Jonathan Edwards (musician) (section)

==Career==
In 1967, he and his band moved to Boston and played clubs throughout New England. With [[Joe Dolce]] on lead guitar, they played cover tunes as well as their own country-blues originals under various names, including the Headstone Circus, St. James Doorknob, and the Finite Minds, and they made an album for [[Metromedia Records]] as Sugar Creek.<ref name="je"/>

In the early 1970s, Edwards left the band and began performing as a solo acoustic artist. He would later recall:
{{blockquote|I liked the sound of bronze strings on rosewood better than steel strings on magnets, and so I walked out of that club in Vermont, rented myself a van and PA system, and started traveling around the colleges in New England by myself, without gigs, just setting up in the lobbies of dormitories on a Saturday. Pretty soon I started getting a following.<ref name="je"/>}}

Edwards began opening for acts such as the [[Allman Brothers Band]] and [[B.B. King]]. He signed with [[Capricorn Records]] to record his first album, ''[[Jonathan Edwards (album)|Jonathan Edwards]]'' (1971).<ref name="allmusic"/> 
{{blockquote|We took about a year recording the first album—different times, different studios, different sounds, different techniques. Recording was so new in '69 and '70. There was a song on the album called 'Please Find Me', and for some reason the engineer rolled over it. It got erased. We spent hours looking for it. We fired the engineer and put "[[Sunshine (Jonathan Edwards song)|Sunshine]]" in its place.<ref name="je"/>}}

Like most of the songs on ''Jonathan Edwards'', "Sunshine" was written shortly after Edwards left the band. "I felt really fresh, really liberated," he later recalled. "I just went out in the woods every day with my bottle of wine and guitar, sat by a lake near Boston and wrote down all those tunes, day after day." Regarding the theme of "Sunshine", Edwards commented, "It was just at the time of the Vietnam War and Nixon. It was looking bad out there. That song meant a lot to a lot of people during that time—especially me."<ref name="je"/> "Sunshine" reached No. 4 on the [[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]] chart, sold over one million copies, and was awarded a [[music recording sales certification|gold disc]] by the [[R.I.A.A.]] in January 1972.<ref name="golden-discs">{{cite book |first=Joseph |last=Murrells |year=1978 |title=The Book of Golden Discs |edition=2nd |publisher=Barrie and Jenkins Ltd |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/bookofgoldendisc00murr/page/292 292] |isbn=0-214-20512-6 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/bookofgoldendisc00murr/page/292 }}</ref>

Following the release of his debut album, Edwards moved out of the city to a farm in western Massachusetts, which provided the rural, country inspiration for his second album, ''Honky-Tonk Stardust Cowboy'' on the [[Atlantic Records]] label. This was an album of mostly self-penned acoustic, country-flavored songs about love and life and was closely followed by ''Have a Good Time For Me'', also on Atlantic.<ref name="je"/>

In 1973 he and his friends got together to record a live album called ''Lucky Day'', named after a song he wrote in the truck on his way up to live in Nova Scotia. This "fresh-air break" lasted only a couple of months when his friend [[Emmylou Harris]] invited him to Los Angeles to sing backup on her album ''[[Elite Hotel]]''. That led to a deal with [[Warner Bros. Records]] and two albums produced by Harris' husband/producer [[Brian Ahern (producer)|Brian Ahern]]: ''Rockin' Chair'' and ''Sailboat''.<ref name="je"/>

In 1979, Edwards moved back to the United States to New Hampshire, and then two years later back to Northern Virginia area where he had grown up. In 1983, he produced and recorded ''Blue Ridge'' with the bluegrass band, [[The Seldom Scene]], for [[Sugar Hill Records (bluegrass label)|Sugar Hill Records]]. Then in 1987 he recorded a children's album, ''Little Hands'', which was released on the small independent American Melody label. It was selected by the [[American Library Association]] as a Notable Children's Recording.<ref name="allmusic"/><ref name="je"/>

Turning to acting, Edwards toured as the lead in the Broadway musical ''[[Pump Boys and Dinettes]]''. When the show reached Nashville, he met an old friend from the folk circuit, Wendy Waldman.<ref name="Appleseed Edwards">{{cite web |url=http://www.appleseedmusic.com/jonathanedwards/ |title=Jonathan Edwards |publisher=Appleseed Recordings |access-date=2018-04-13 |archive-date=March 10, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180310084604/http://www.appleseedmusic.com/jonathanedwards/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> She and Mike Robertson convinced Edwards to come to town and record a country album. "I've been making country-sounding records all my life, but never in Nashville. Yeah, let's do it." Edwards said. So, ''[[The Natural Thing (Jonathan Edwards album)|The Natural Thing]]'' was produced, recorded, and released on MCA/Curb Records in 1989. "I was crazy about the songs we selected from those great Nashville writers, and the acoustic-based production that Wendy and I put together was just a joy to make and to listen to. I count that as one of the best albums I've ever been involved with."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.last.fm/de/music/Jonathan+Edwards/+wiki|title=Alter, Heimatstadt, Biografie von Jonathan Edwards|website=Last.fm|language=de|access-date=2020-04-21}}</ref>

In the 1990s, Edwards continued to tour, doing session work, and producing his own music as well as that of other talents, such as [[Cheryl Wheeler]] ("Driving Home," "Mrs. Pinocci's Guitar"). He took part in the 1994 "Back to the Future" tour that also included [[Don McLean]], [[Tom Rush]], [[Jesse Colin Young]], [[Steve Forbert]] and [[Al Stewart]]. In 1994 he released ''One Day Closer'', his first solo album in five years, on his new record label, Rising Records. ''Man in the Moon'', which includes several of Edwards' original songs, followed the end of 1997. In September 1997, Rising Records released a remixed, re-sequenced ''Among Us'', a CD by [[Simon Townshend]], younger brother of the Who's [[Pete Townshend]]. Edwards also scored the soundtrack for ''The Mouse'', starring [[John Savage (actor)|John Savage]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://variety.com/1996/film/reviews/the-mouse-1200447610/|title=The Mouse|last1=Harvey|first1=Dennis|date=1996-11-18|website=Variety|language=en|access-date=2019-02-05}}</ref>

[[File:Michael Martin Murphey and Jonathan Edwards 2012.JPG|thumb|upright=1.2|Jonathan Edwards, Michael Martin Murphey, and Gary Roller at The Flying Monkey, Plymouth, New Hampshire, October 13, 2012]]
In 2001, Edwards celebrated 30 years of "Sunshine" with a First Annual Farewell Tour with [[Kenny White]] on piano. In the 2000s, Edwards narrated and performed in a travel series for Media Artists entitled ''Cruising America's Waterways'',<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20000115175134/http://www.cruisingamerica.com/] </ref> which was purchased by PBS. Media Artists also released a companion album. Edwards participated in a second series, which started running on PBS-TV stations in May 2004.

In 2008, Edwards appeared in the romantic comedy film ''[[The Golden Boys]]'', starring [[Bruce Dern]], [[David Carradine]], [[Charles Durning]], [[Mariel Hemingway]], and [[Rip Torn]]. Set in Cape Cod in 1905, the film featured Edwards in the role of Reverend Perley. In addition to acting, Edwards scored the film.<ref name="je"/>

In the fall of 2012, he appeared with [[Michael Martin Murphey]] in a series of concerts throughout New England. He continues to tour both solo and with band members Tom Snow, Rick Brodsky, Rob Duquette and Joe K. Walsh.

Edwards lives in [[Portland, Maine]].