Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Even The Subject's Own Web Site Downplays It, July 21, 2003
With all due respect to Mr. Patience, the Australian who praised this book a few months ago, I must point out the difference between a forgotten artist's legacy and a writer's attempt to interest a large audience in the artist's * life. *In Australia people have the impression that Johnnie Ray lives on as a father of rock & roll, that he belongs up there with Sinatra, Elvis and Buddy Holly. In the United States such is not the case. He is forgotten. This lurid book isn't the way to bring him back. Even the Johnnie Ray web site seems to agree. It includes surprisingly few references to the text, and it's the only book we're going to get. Too many people have died. All right, I will stick to evidence as the last reviewer did. Page 45: "A contemplation of his painful adolescence, the song [Little White Cloud That Cried whose music and lyrics Johnnie wrote] was an anthemic summation of Johnnie's experience, drawn both from agonies past and the present struggle to understand his sexuality." Really ? How do we know that ? Mr. Whiteside does not cite an interview with The Cry Guy in which he says the lyrics suggested anything about his sexual preference. And remember, Johnnie was involved with women as well as men during that era. Page 233: "Johnnie was spread out like a free lunch [drunk wearing a Scottish kilt at a Detroit party after he became famous], surrounded by several tuxedo clad closet queens actively engaged in satisfying their hands-on curiosity over what a man wore under his kilts." How do we know that ? Mr. Whiteside says African American jazz singer Thelma Carpenter supposedly witnessed this scene, but her direct quotes don't provide those sensational details. Mr. Whiteside does. Ms. Carpenter is deceased now. Mr. Whiteside provides no other source. Oh, well. Page 243: "Johnnie became fast friends with Christopher George, making his acquaintance after the strapping actor wowed New York's gay community with a topless appearance in a deodorant commercial." You mean the Marlboro Man covered up too much to acquire a gay following ? This goes beyond sensationalism. It is a lurid act of outing a dead actor who never became very famous. Mr. Whiteside's fey choice of words doesn't help. Christopher George died several years before Mr. Whiteside started work on the book. He even predeceased Johnnie Ray. The Los Angeles Times said he died of a heart attack and was survived by his wife, the beautiful actress Lynda Day George. She won an Emmy Award for her work on Archie Bunker's Place. One hopes her ignorance of the Whiteside book is blissful. As you can see, Jonny Whiteside isn't reviving a forgotten artist. He's just another Los Angeles writer outing defenseless people and hurling dung. Instead of paying big bucks for this book (that's what it costs to dig it out of a remainder warehouse), please spend your money on a Johnnie Ray CD and the occasional supermarket tabloid.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Oh Lord, Won't You Buy Me A Color TV ?, August 14, 2003
I agree with the previous two posters that Jonny Whiteside is a sleaze masquerading as a serious historian. I'm giving him one star for his vivid descriptions of the American nightclubs where Johnnie Ray performed in the 1950s and early 1960s. Even the place in Greensboro, North Carolina where the Cry Guy performed while his American career was on the rocks sounds fun. Readers who have paid the "22.99" U.S. dollars listed on the book jacket know one thing for sure. Oh, Jonny, oh, Jonny was havin' a ball writing the book. He rambles on about the "mad" state of mind of Howard Hughes in 1967, Italian and Jewish crime families of the 1950s (What did they know about Johnnie Ray's sexual preference and when did they know it ?) and the role of conspiracy theorist Mark Lane in the 1978 Jonestown, Guyana massacre. Jonny says Lee Oswald was a lot like Charles Guiteau, assassin of the 19th Century American president James Garfield. What do those subjects tell the reader about why Johnnie Ray became so popular in 1952, why he became a statistic in Greensboro, North Carolina ten years later and why the nostalgia market of the 1970s kept him at arm's length ? Those unanswered questions surround this deceased singer who is lucky to be remembered at all. ...P>Also, the TV Land channel occasionally repeats a segment from a 1983 Entertainment Tonight episode in which Johnnie Ray discusses the mysterious death of his girlfriend Dorothy Kilgallen. He seems very sane and, moreover, eloquent. But biographer Whiteside portrays him as a confused, aging alcoholic who latched on to conspiracy theories including the one about Kilgallen and JFK. The truth is that Johnnie Ray was a very loving person, and he agreed to do the Entertainment Tonight segment so he could discuss someone he loved. The program didn't plug the low - priced nostalgia concerts he was scheduled to do at the time, and Mary Hart might have been too young in 1983 to understand the Johnnie Ray phenomenon, but the videocassette lives on. The TV Land channel stores it, and it will reappear on your TV set occasionally. Basic cable TV is a better bargain than this book. It is out - of - print, and it no longer costs 22.99. The people who dig up remainder copies need compensation. Mr. Whiteside's powerful description of New York City's Copacabana nightclub, where Johnnie Ray gave concerts that were so amazing that he probably couldn't top them, might make the reader feel sad that the place expired in 1973. Grieve not, dear reader. Now it's the hotspot called Scores. You can find it on East 60th Street. Some of the architecture of the Copa remains, both indoor and out. Mr. Whiteside could write a great book about one of the regular performers there. I hope he endows the woman with more dignity than Howard Stern does.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Johnnie Ray Fantasy, June 29, 2003
First of all this book was very tedious reading. Part of it might have been because Whiteside relied so heavily on quotes from magazines, newspapers etc. He would also go off on tangents that really had no relevance. Example: A full chapter was devoted to Dorthy Kilgallen's death and a crazy conspiracy theory. The book is filled with mistakes and contradictions. I'll list a few now. "Suddenly, 1956 - and the rise of rock and roll - was upon Johnnie. The eruption of this trade-swaggering sound came so swiftly the Cry Guy was unaware of it. pg 204 Now how in the world could Ray who some call the proto-type for or father of rock and roll unaware of this new sound? "I went in there," he recalled (Johnnie Ray), "and at first I couldn't tell which one was Elvis because they all had guitars. It was pretty obvious that he was doing it by rote, something that about 300 other Black guys had done before him." pg 206 Hmm, 300 Black guys had done it before, but our friend thinks Presley picked it up from a single white guy. "Nonetheless, Johnnie's undeniable role as such was being recognized by the trade as the rock and roll's dominance in the field mounted." pg 235 "What I'm trying to say is that I consider Johnnie Ray to be the
father of rock and roll, especially in Britain: the Beatles, Elton John all those people followed him"...Tony Bennett pg 236 "If I could only find a White man that could sing like a Negro, I'd make a million dollars" ...Sam Phillips. pg 236 Whiteside interrupts this as Phillips really meaning "another Johnnie Ray." That's a real stretch. Just as Johnnie was too wild, extreme and free to presume that such a derivative and limited art form as rock and roll was his child. pg 236 I'll have to look around for the quote, but like our friend,
Whiteside believes in the great rock 'n' roll myth too. The main
difference is that Whiteside claims it began in 1957. The fact is that Whiteside tries to make us believe that was the proto-type rock and roll singer and/or even the father. To to those that know the truth Ray was nothing, but a pop novelty act.
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