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With Ronstadt on board, the Stone Poneys recorded “Different Drum,” written by Monkees member Mike Nesmith, and watched it rise to No. “My friend Bobby Kimmel said, ‘I know this great singer from Tucson, why don’t we see if the three of us can hit it off?’ ” Edwards told the Monterey County Weekly last year. He grew up in the nearby Mar Vista neighborhood, attended Venice High School, learned to swim in the Pacific Ocean and was a lifelong surfer, but early on music became a passion, sparked by nightly guitar-playing sessions with his father.īarely out of high school, he formed the Stone Poneys in 1965 with Bobby Kimmel, a Tucson musician who had moved to Los Angeles to explore the burgeoning folk-rock scene that had been spearheaded by the Byrds and would soon yield Buffalo Springfield and later the Eagles, who were Ronstadt’s backing singers and musicians before the group’s own career took off.Įdwards and Kimmel worked for a time at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, which was a hub for musicians as well as fans of folk, country, bluegrass and blues music. 10, 1946, in Santa Monica, the son of Kenneth Clyde Edwards and Mary Carol Edwards. “He was so significant in the building of Ronstadt’s sound.” “There was a certain attitude toward music, a hybridization of styles, that came out of Kenny’s blood,” Waldman said. Bonoff issued a statement Thursday thanking Edwards “for being my teacher, my musical partner and my best friend for the last 43 years.” Shortly after the Stone Poneys disbanded after their 1967 breakthrough hit “Different Drum,” which established Ronstadt as a rising star from the nascent Southern California country-rock scene, Edwards teamed with singer-songwriter Wendy Waldman, Bonoff and Gold to form the folk-rock band Bryndle. He was always a really good ensemble player.”
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“He came up with that guitar and bass idea that gave it a very different sound, and really gave Andrew and Peter something to build on….When he and Andrew started singing together with me, that became a really important part of my sound. She credited Edwards with creating the musical framework for her only No. “He introduced me to so much stuff, and his opinion always counted a lot to me.” “He was always a beacon to me,” Ronstadt said Thursday. He was hospitalized in Denver, then air-lifted to a hospital near his home in Santa Barbara, where he died. He was diagnosed with the blood disorder thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, or TTP, and also had been undergoing chemotherapy for prostate cancer. He was 64.Įdwards had collapsed earlier this month in Denver while on tour with singer-songwriter Karla Bonoff, a longtime musical partner.
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Kenny Edwards, a founding member of the Stone Poneys country-rock band that launched Linda Ronstadt’s career and a valued supporting guitarist and singer for Stevie Nicks, Don Henley and numerous others, died Wednesday after battling cancer and a blood disorder in recent years.