Edgar Wilkinson was a longtime Chicago-area jazz musician whose many gigs included playing tuba at Wrigley Field in the Chicago Cubs Dixieland band for 15 years.
Wilkinson and his first wife also owned north suburban hubcap stores operating in three different physical locations for about 20 years.
“He was a real gentleman and a very good tuba player,” said Jerry Coleman, a longtime bandmate. “He was a wonderful human being.”
Wilkinson, 87, died of congestive heart failure on Feb. 27 at the Oak Hill Supportive Living Community in Round Lake Beach, said his daughter, Liz Wilkinson Allen.
A Round Lake resident who previously lived in Highland Park for 35 years, Wilkinson had been battling leukemia and chronic kidney disease, his daughter said.
Edgar Lewis Wilkinson was born in Nettleton, Arkansas, which now is part of Jonesboro, Arkansas, his daughter said. As a youngster, he moved with his family to St. Louis, and he attended Central High School there.
As a teenager, Wilkinson loved playing music, and he resolved to join the Marines so he could play in a band, his daughter said. At age 17, his parents permitted him to enlist in the Marines, and he served on the front lines in Korea during the Korean War.
After two years in the Marines, Wilkinson contracted typhoid fever and he returned home in 1952, his daughter said. Upon leaving the Marines, he began working full-time as a musician with the Dixie Stompers, a St. Louis-area Dixieland jazz band with whom he worked to produce a record. Wilkinson, who specialized in the standing string bass, the electric bass and the tuba, then played with a dance band that was based in Champaign, Illinois. He then joined a West Coast touring band that ultimately had a long-term gig at the Golden Nugget hotel and casino in Las Vegas.
After that, Wilkinson spent several years touring the U.S. as part of a jazz band led by legendary trumpeter Clyde McCoy. Wilkinson decided to move to Chicago in 1961 and took a job touring with the Don Glasser Orchestra, which was where he met Jerry Coleman. The two subsequently spent several years traveling in the U.S. and Japan with a Dixieland jazz band called the Village Stompers.
Over the next several years, Wilkinson played numerous other gigs, including in older jazz clubs in Chicago. During the 1970s and 1980s, Wilkinson led his own band, the Mainstream Jazz Band, which performed around the Chicago area, and he also spent several years traveling with Jim Dapogny’s Chicago Jazz Band. He also played the tuba in German bands at German restaurants and events both in Chicago and in Milwaukee.
“He loved Dixieland jazz,” his daughter said. “He loved Louis Armstrong, who he eventually got to meet, and he loved to talk about music.”
Wilkinson also performed on singer-songwriter Sippie Wallace’s 1982 Grammy-nominated blues album, “Sippie.”
– Original Credit: Liz Wilkinson Allen
One of Wilkinson’s favorite roles came when he joined the Chicago Cubs Dixieland band in 1996. A longtime Cubs fan, Wilkinson was thrilled to have the opportunity to perform in the aisles of Wrigley Field between innings of ballgames, his daughter said. He performed in that band for 15 years, until he was 79 years old.
“It was such a thrill for him to work as a musician at Wrigley,” his daughter said.
Wilkinson retired from performing music around 2015, largely due to the fact that his hearing had deteriorated, his daughter said.
Beginning with Chicago’s 1979 blizzard, Wilkinson began collecting hubcaps that had flown off car tires. He would spot these along the sides of roads and highways as he traveled to and from gigs, his daughter said. He eventually amassed enough of a collection — some 2,000 hubcaps in his house — that he and his first wife, Ann, decided in 1981 to open a store, The Hubcap and Wheel, in Libertyville. Other stores followed, in Morton Grove and Glenview.
Wilkinson viewed the hubcap stores as a way to supplement his family’s income, his daughter said.
“He was one of the most honest men I’ve ever known. If we shipped a customer a hubcap and it cost less than we said, he would refund the extra money,” said Gail Ruggles, Wilkinson’s longtime accountant and business colleague. “He was incredibly kind, and he had a very wry sense of humor and a fantastic memory. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. And he had a lot of energy — he worked from sunup to sundown. When he wasn’t selling hubcaps, he was making music.”
Wilkinson sold hubcaps to every state in the union and to 31 countries, Ruggles said.
Wilkinson decided to close the stores in 2001, when his first wife had a stroke and he needed to stay home and care for her, Ruggles said.
“My mom needed constant care after her stroke, and my dad took care of her by himself for more than two years,” Wilkinson’s daughter said. “It’s a great blessing to my sister and me to have that memory of him. He spent this life working very hard for his family.”
Although his stores had closed, Wilkinson continued to sell hubcaps online until his death. In his later years, he enjoyed traveling, including spending several winters in Mexico. Wilkinson also was a Civil War buff who had visited many battlefields, his daughter said. He loved his German Shepherd and Rottweiler dogs, and he gave each one a name that was a variation of the name of American jazz composer Bix Beiderbecke, his daughter said.
Wilkinson’s first wife, Ann, died in 2004. In addition to his daughter, Wilkinson is survived by his second wife, Carolyn; another daughter, Melissa Wilkinson Pletcher; two grandchildren; a stepson, Mark Lujan; and three step-grandchildren.
There were no services.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
