- He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 1709 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
- Jazz pianist and composer, leader of a popular swing sextet in the 1940's. He had big hits with "Canadian Sunset" and "Soft Summer Breeze". From 1947, Heywood suffered from partial paralysis of his hands which hampered his later career, though he continued to perform and write music up until the early 1980's.
- His group was billed as 'the Biggest Little Band in the Land", which put it into direct competition with John Kirby, whose sextet shared the same tag line.
- Heywood had two sons, Robert and Edward, and one granddaughter, Bailey Heywood.
- Heywood died at home in Miami Beach, Florida, aged 73. Parkinson's disease had been complicated by Alzheimer's disease, and Heywood had been in poor health for five years.
- After a second partial paralysis from 1966 to 1969, Heywood made another comeback and continued his career into the 1980s.
- His father, Eddie Heywood Sr., was also a jazz musician from the 1920s and provided him with training from the age of 12 as an accompanist playing in the pit band in a vaudeville theater in Atlanta, occasionally accompanying singers such as Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters.
- He made a comeback in1951 after Heywood was stricken in 1947 with a partial paralysis of his hands and was unable to perform.
- In 1943, Heywood took several solos on a Coleman Hawkins quartet date (including "The Man I Love") and put together a sextet, including Doc Cheatham (tpt), Vic Dickenson (tb), Lem Davis (as), Al Lucas (b), and Jack Parker (d). After their version of "Begin the Beguine" became a hit in 1944, the group had three successful years.[3] "Begin the Beguine" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.
- In the 1950s, Heywood composed and recorded "Land of Dreams" and "Soft Summer Breeze" (1956) (which peaked at number 11 on the Billboard chart).
- Heywood played with jazz musicians such as Wayman Carver in 1932, Clarence Love from 1934 to 1937 and Benny Carter, who heard him in Kansas City playing with Clarence Love, from 1939 to 1940 after moving to New York City in 1938.
- He was an American jazz pianist particularly active in the 1940s and 1950s.
- After starting his band, Heywood would occasionally provide accompaniment for Billie Holiday in 1941.
- Heywood moved, first to New Orleans and then to Kansas City, when vaudeville began to be replaced by sound pictures.
- In 1943, Eddie Heywood took several classic solos on a Coleman Hawkins quartet date (most notably "The Man I Love") and put together his first sextet, which also included Doc Cheatham and Vic Dickenson. Their 1944 version of "Begin the Beguine" became a hit, and three years of strong success followed.
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