Johnnie Ray was completely different from anything that went before him. . . .I consider Johnnie Ray to be the father of rock and roll.   -Tony Bennett

In the early 1950s Johnnie Ray was the biggest musical star in the world. His emotional singing and sexually suggestive performances earned him the titles "The Prince of Wails," "The Cry Guy," and "The Million Dollar Teardrop"; they also put him at the top of the music charts. From Sydney to Chicago and London, teenage riots erupted wherever Johnnie went. Many who were a part of the music scene in the 1950s find it unbelievable that Johnnie Ray, whose singing turned the pop music world upside down and opened the way for Elvis, has been largely forgotten today. They remember Johnnie as the first rock and roll star.

John Alvin Ray was born in Dallas, Oregon, on January 10, 1927, the second child of Elmer and Hazel Ray. Johnnie has described his family as very loving and musical. His father Elmer was a farmer and a fiddler in a string band, and through him Johnnie became well acquainted with country music. Johnnie's mother, a religious woman, introduced him to hymns and encouraged him to sing in church. His sister Elma loved jazz and shared her extensive record collection with him. From an early age Johnnie astounded his family and friends with his musical talents and his penchant for the dramatic. His childhood friend Dolores Steele has said of Johnnie:

Johnnie's imagination had no limits-from dying his hair green to creating plays for all us neighborhood kids and putting them on behind my grandpa's sliding wooden door [as a curtain] to the woodshed. He loved curtains. We had a theater in my barn and he brought his mom's lovely quilts-attached clothespins to the bottom with strings attached. They drew up nicely! Had an empty oil drum as a counter and beat on it to draw those neighborhood kids to this fabulous play.

At age 12 Johnnie suffered a devastating accident on a Boy Scout trip, which left him partially deaf in his right ear and forced him to perform with a hearing aid throughout his career. The accident had a deep affect on Johnnie and was pivotal in his development as a person and an artist. Speaking about his emotional style of performing, Johnnie revealed:

The basis is sincerity. My need for sincerity traces back to when I was a child and lost my hearing. I became withdrawn. I had an emotional need to develop a relationship to other people.

Johnnie Ray originally wanted to be an actor, but when he was unable to find dramatic work he focused on singing. Johnnie got his big break at the Flame Show Bar, a black nightclub in Detroit that featured rhythm and blues performers.  Johnnie stated publicly on many occasions that it was at the Flame Show Bar, through the influence and support of the black artists with whom he performed and socialized, that he developed his distinctive emotional and physical style of performing.  According to firsthand accounts, Johnnie's performances were unforgettable. Johnnie would roam freely across the stage, tear at his hair, wave his sinewy arms, rip down curtains, fall to the floor, contort his face, and let the tears flow. His phrasing was brilliant, as he cut some words short and stretched others to extremes; his lyrics were infused with passion and a sense of urgency. Johnnie had the amazing ability to take his audience with him on this emotional ride. His performance was a cathartic event for his audience.

Johnnie's performances at the Flame Show Bar brought him to the attention of record company executives, and in October of 1951 he recorded "Cry" and "The Little White Cloud That Cried." These songs, the A and B sides of one 78 rpm record, were raw and effusive. They shook the musical world. Johnnie's primal, emotional recordings seemed to be a call to revolution, and audiences across the globe responded. He became an overnight success. His record shot up the charts, stayed at number one for eleven weeks, and eventually sold three million copies.

Johnnie went on to have more than twenty hits from 1951 to 1958. Several of them were smashes, such as "Please, Mr. Sun," "Here Am I-Broken Hearted," and "Walkin' My Baby Back Home." He made well over a million dollars a year throughout much of the 1950s, sold out shows around the world, and appeared in a number of movies. His emotional recordings and sexually charged performances made Johnnie a huge international star. But his fame was coupled with substance abuse and an unconventional life style--he was openly bi-sexual in an era when it was against the law to be gay, and he was arrested several times on morals charges. His fame also brought him to the attention of New York high society, and particularly Dorothy Kilgallen. Dorothy Kilgallen was nationally known for her syndicated newspaper column, The Voice of Broadway, and her role as panelist on the television game show "What's My Line." Married and a professed Catholic, Kilgallen carried on a very public affair with Johnnie Ray for several years.

Beginning in the late 1950s Johnnie's luster began to fade, fueled in part by reports of his homosexuality and substance abuse. In the early 1960s he became a casualty of the changing music scene. His descent into alcoholism and financial ruin were both predictable and sad. During the 1970s Johnnie seemed to find himself again and reemerged as a cabaret singer. He drew upon his early material and mixed in some new songs; his voice took on a smokier, weathered quality; and he performed with a disarming boyish vulnerability. Audiences and some critics seemed to respond. Despite his troubles in the United States, Johnnie always remained popular abroad, particularly in Australia and England, where he continued to draw large audiences until the late 1980s.

Johnnie Ray gave his final performance before a half-capacity crowd in Salem on October 6, 1989. Always loyal to his native Oregon, Johnnie gave a benefit for the Grand Theatre in Salem as his last show. He died in Los Angeles of liver failure on February 24, 1990. It was an unfortunate end for a singer who had a dozen gold records; who opened the way for Elvis and the overt sexual energy of rock and roll; and who is credited by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Elton John as being a formative influence on their artistic styles.

James Fox
James Fox first served as a Special Collections Librarian at University of Oregon’s Knight Library from 1989 to 1993. After a seven-year stint at the University of Michigan, he returned to Eugene and since 2000 has been the Head of Special Collections and University Archives. Fox is responsible for acquiring and managing the papers and records of notable Oregon writers, politicians, and organizations and has also been heavily involved in the Northwest Digital Archives project and has served on the editorial boards of the Oregon State University Press, the Knight Library Press, and Wellsprings Friends School, an alternative high school in Eugene. He is an avid fly fisher who plies Oregon’s mountain and coastal streams at every opportunity.

Sources

Whiteside, Johnny. Cry: The Johnnie Ray Story. Barricade Books: New York, 1994.

Norris, Gary. Give Me Time: A Guide to the Music of Johnnie Ray. Self published, 2002.

Steele, Dolores. “Dolores Steele and Johnnie Ray, a Remembrance� from the “Johnnie Ray� exhibition, Polk County Historical Museum, Monmouth, Oregon, 2004.

Wilson, John S. “Pop Jazz: Johnnie Ray Is Back at East Side Club.� The New York Times: May 22, 1981.

Mann, Tad. Beyond the Marquee: Johnnie Ray. Author House: Bloomington, 2006.