Cliff Edwards went from being a carnie and a saloon singer to one of the forerunners of ukulele music and scat in the '20s. His style was known as "effin", in which someone would try to impersonate a kazoo or a trumpet rather than making jazzy shooby dooby sounds and things like that. Also known as "Ukelele Ike" (that's how they used to spell it), Edwards came to prominence with his version of "Singing In The Rain", and is best known as the voice of Jiminy Cricket singing "When You Wish Upon A Star". In addition to making appearances on The Mickey Mouse Club, Gone With The Wind, and various other acting, radio, voice over work, including a weekly vaudeville television show, he's also somewhat notorious for songs that were banned in their time such as "Paddlin' Madelin Home", "I'm Going To Give It To Mary With Love" and "I'm A Bear In A Lady's Boudoir". Edwards and Buster Keaton propped each other up with overlapping binges to make music between filming.
On into the 40s, Cliff's corner of the music spectrum started to become more schmaltzy, where crooners like Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee overtook the public's eye. Ike was more or less forgotten after his heyday, and with Disney secretly supplementing his medical expenses (or habits), he died quietly in 1971, in poverty after a lifelong addiction to drugs and alcohol. There is a Ukelele Ike LP with cover art by Robert Crumb from 1975 that emphasizes both the Disney and the dark side, but I think "Ukelele Ike" should be as familiar to the general public as Fats Waller. "Night Owl" is my favorite song in the world, and even though my ukulele sits in the corner waiting, should I ever pick it up and learn how to play it, it would be solely because of this song alone (that's what I bought it for). Tiny Tim is great and all, but Ukulele Ike is for the children!
Thanks for that, and that Buster Keaton clip was great. I've been trying to find Cliff's recording of "Frankie and Johnny" since I heard it in "Red-Headed Woman". Well, it sounds like him, and IMDB says it's him, but I'm starting to think maybe it was never released. Here's the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptiNW0D0xOU
Posted by: Pat | August 12, 2011 at 01:45 AM
Ukulele Ike remains one of the great inspirations for ukulele players. Thanx for this page.
Posted by: Joe Boyd | August 13, 2011 at 03:21 AM
That's always been one of my favorite songs of his as well (and he does SO many good originals and covers); always worth passing around some more.
Posted by: Mindwrecker | August 14, 2011 at 02:14 PM
Does anyone know about the copyrights that apply to this recording? I am a cartoonist for a community of online, barn owl habitat viewers, and someone sent me an MP3 of this song...and I fell in love with it. So much so that I took a bunch of footage of baby barn owls and put it to this music, and I believe the outcome turned out really cute! But now I am wondering if I can post it online without getting sued. Any clues?
Posted by: John Atkinson | August 19, 2011 at 12:04 PM