John Byron Edwards

Greetings to you all.

I need to tell you about a man from Calgary.

We have all met memorable people who are interesting enough to call Broadway characters. Very few though, have met a renaissance man. I never had until my brother and son and I, stopped at a local inn in the small town of Gordonsville, Virginia. There I had the pleasure of running into John Byron Edwards.

Seated at a table next to ours, was this man and his guitar, surrounded by friends and strangers alike, singing old and new world ballads, passing around photographs of experiences around the world, and telling some of the funniest stories I have ever heard.

Soon other tables, and then the entire restaurant, were listening and applauding. No one wanted this man to stop or the day to end. Edward's travels are what dreams are made of, leaving home still in his mid-teens, John set out to see the world and sail the seas, and this he surely did.

His education is practical, with the academics self-taught, and that suited the Everly Brothers, Don and Phil, when they appointed John their road manager. They too, appreciated his talent, as well as his life experiences on fishing boats and freighters, the oil fields and mining camps of Northern Canada, and the logging trucks in British Columbia.
 

I said to him "John, you've been around the Horn," and he replied "Yes, I actually have." John and two of his mates purchased a 57' sailing vessel, the 'Sea Lion', left Boston for Bermuda, Rio de Janeiro, The Falkland Islands, rounded Cape Horn and out into the Pacific.