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Cliff Edwards


I have recently become very interested in the career of Cliff Edwards know to many in the 30's as Ukulele Ike. Now Cliff if you have never heard of him was HUGE in the 20's and 30's, he was everywhere, he could do everything. He was a comedian, he could act, he played Ukulele (of course) and he could sing, boy could he sing. Cliff was a great "scat singer", he is amazing to listen to and his music although not much heard of today would be I think if more widely known make him famous all over again.

He had over his career sales of over 70 million (no that is not a typo) records, his own radio show and later his own television show. He starred with such legends as Buster Keaton (which is where I first came to know of him) in the early 30's.

Cliff was the first person on film to sing "Singin in the Rain" you should hear his version from "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" a major outing by MGM to welcome sound.



Cliff lived an amazing life, sadly it was not all good. I don't want to go too much into the sad aspects of his life and death in 1971, but unfortunately when he died he had been forgotten about, all those 70+ millions sales came to nothing when Cliff really needed help.

So if you have never heard of Cliff before I can almost guarantee that you have heard him sing. You see Cliff was the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Disney's 1940 animated movie 'Pinocchio', he sang "When You Wish upon a Star".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Z8VW7LhsY

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