Education
Juilliard School; Manhattan School of Music.
Juilliard School; Manhattan School of Music.
Birdsong is the son of a minister and grew up in a strict fundamentalist environment. He joined the Los Angeles Community Choir for a period before serving in the Vietnam War. He went on to play in clubs in Germany, and then moved to New York to pursue his music career.
There he headed a jazz and blues trio but experienced little success.
While in New York he attended the Manhattan School of Music as well as Juilliard as a composition major. In 1971 he signed a record deal with Polydor.
Under Polydor, he issued his first 2 full length albums, What lieutenant Is and Supernatural. Birdsong then issued one album for Bamboo, Dance of Survival, in 1975, and recorded Edwin Birdsong for Philadelphia International in 1979, which included the single "Phiss-Phizz." Birdsong also worked extensively with Roy Ayers.
Company-producing 3 of his albums and writing "Running Away" and "Freaky Deaky" with him.
Birdsong slowly stopped making his own music but carried on playing session work for many well known artists including Stevie Wonder. Birdsong served as a mentor early in the career of Hip-Hop Artist/Producer Funkghost.