Customer Reviews

Cry: The Johnnie Ray Story

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

I enjoyed the imagery of the "pink neon bubbles" that the author conjures when he describes the Flame showbar in Detroit. Marquees were important in the 1950s. No color television then.

I give Jonny Whiteside one star for that visualization technique (Doesn't the Three - In - One Concepts branch of personology use it?) and one star for his many descriptions of Johnnie Ray's soul - bearing concerts.

But nothing else in the book warrants a star. Describing Johnnie Ray's bedroom activities is bad enough, but why try to expose his dead partners ? Like the other reviewer said, it is in poor taste to out that obscure dead actor from forgotten TV adventure shows. I've met his lovely widow Lynda, and I can't believe she would participate in a phony Hollywood marriage. She's a straight - shooting person. The author would know that by contacting her. He didn't.

If you like visual imagery of forgotten night clubs of yesteryear, then this book is for you. If you like an original American singing style, you can either read this book or you can watch a DVD of Johnnie Ray in There's No Business Like Show Business.

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.

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.

I don't mean to give a hard time to a poor writer who has to his credit this book and a biography of Rose Maddox, both released by small publishers, no other books, and some concert reviews in Los Angeles Weekly.

But I'm afraid the previous reviewers who castigated Burbank - based author Jonny Whiteside have done their homework. I can add that he made the following glaring error on page 210 about Johnnie Ray's girlfriend Dorothy Kilgallen:

"And she, daughter of a veteran Hearst reporter reared in a gracious social milieu, polished at exclusive boarding schools and universities, seasoned by almost six years of hard crime reporting (inured to the sight of corpses, grief and disaster) was literally and figuratively, the First Lady of Broadway columnists ... "

The Kilgallen collection of photographs and documents at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts in New York City begs to differ with these claims.

Dorothy spent her childhood in the South Side of Chicago (a ghetto of Irish who were despised), Laramie, Wyoming, Indianapolis and then Brooklyn in her teen - aged years. She graduated from Erasmus Hall High School, the same "gracious social milieu" to which Barbra Streisand belonged thirty years later. Upon graduating from this public school, Dorothy spent a year at the hardly "exclusive" College of New Rochelle before dropping out to become a hard crime reporter.

That career lasted much more than "almost six years." Shortly before she broke Johnnie Ray's heart by dying mysteriously, she helped F. Lee Bailey get the incarcerated Dr. Sam Sheppard out of prison.

I don't see any reason to point out more of Mr. Whiteside's errors about Johnnie Ray, "the wholesome public heterosexual, with all that gee - whiz piety." (page 176) I will close by saying that this book is a product of the age of the National Enquirer and television's "A Current Affair." Libel the dead and make them do what you want them to do. The Internet can help some of the dead get their own back.

The terrible details Mr. Whiteside rubs in may be true, but they ruin his stated goal of turning on young people to Mr. Ray. Few young people are homophobic and narrow-minded compared to the young people of fifty years ago. They don't care if a performer is gay or if television ignores that performer. But they do have to experience the star's music before they pay attention to sordid details. Sure, the young people can deal with stories of celebrity sex and substance abuse. They're bombarded with it and don't believe in the myth of glittery fame as did their counterparts of the 1950s. There's still a major obstacle to them paying attention to a certain musician. That's the obstacle that they haven't heard the music. They need to buy a Johnnie Ray CD before they would care about the departed musician abusing alcohol, pharmaceutical drugs and having sex. The Whiteside book will do little to inspire them to buy that CD. No music, no sensationalism. You lose, Mr. Whiteside. Next time you try to save a musician from oblivion, keep in mind that most people in this world don't live in Southern California. That means they judge a musician on the music, not what the person did for fun on the Sunset Strip. Also, you were very cruel to Dorothy Kilgallen's memory. Your only source on her alleged "drunk, high, out-of-it" behavior is Bill Franklin, and he died conveniently before the book came out and someone could verify his quotes. Face it, Mr. Whiteside. You can't sing and you're not a newsman.

I've liked Johnnie Ray since the first time I saw "There's No Business Like Show Business" and was hooked for sure the first time I heard "Cry", so for me any and all information on him is worth reading. Whether the book has inaccuracies or not, I feel that I got a good sense of what Johnnie was about and am even more of a fan now that I've read this book.

My family was close friends with Johnnie Ray from 1950 until his death. Many of the "facts" in this book are made up, or altogether wrong. It's very sensationalistic and gossip-y, and seems like it was written as part of the National Enquirer. I cannot recommend this book at all!

I just got this for Christmas. The following on page 354 bothers me.

Johnnie [Ray] and Bill [Franklin] went out on the road, jumping all over the country, and returned to tour England in late 1966. As pop music veered off into sugarcoated and inane new directions, bubblegum rock versus pop slop, a hollow musical legacy born of the Beatles' cunning solipsisms, Johnnie continued to root around in the bloody bowels of his libidinous R&B kick. He still disemboweled pop convention and celebrated worldly lust; next to the cheery mop tops of 1966, Johnnie's Real Gone black and tan ritual seemed as desperate and amoral as Gilles de Rais squatting to examine the warm entrails of a freshly butchered child.

A television special "An Evening With Johnnie Ray," taped December 28, 1966 at Chicago's WGN captured him working before a live audience on a simulated supper club set.

Clad in a tux whose narrow cut accentuated his already painfully wan figure, hair plastered across forehead in a moddish style that lent a distinct Frankenstein-like impression, he really did, as Kay Starr once described him, look like a ghost, or a man whose spirit and appearance had been twisted by time spent in a concentration camp. ...

Gee, can you understand why I am upset that my close friend risked putting credit card information online?

During the week of April 18-24, 2008, people could read for free (in LA Weekly) more bizarre stuff from Jonny Whiteside:

The paradox of "folk music," where the banal, barely able Pete Seeger was perceived as a creative force comparable to the intensely idiosyncratic Texas blues demon Lightnin' Hopkins, is one of the great pop-culture snafus of modern America.

The book "Cry: The Johnnie Ray Story" is a close encounter with Jonny Whiteside, nothing more. Irving Wallace, his son and daughter once compiled a list of nine "close encounters" with Richard Nixon.

A nostalgia buff named Bill Dicicco (Sherman Oaks enterprise) owns the only surviving videotape of "An Evening With Johnnie Ray." Few people have seen it since 1966. That makes me sad and angry.

I think I've found a passage on page 256 that Miranda noticed. Here is a direct quote.

Quote On

... Even Louis Armstrong was a square.

The rejection of entertainment by jazzmen (who loathed R&B honkers because they were so demonstrably earthy, humanistic and well loved) created a Give-the-People-What-They-Don't-Want ethic. Despite claims of artistic profundity by high-handed, brown-nosing critics, the jazz body politick was a musically bigoted, ultra-hincty jive routine. It ran from everything Johnnie thrived on and espoused: Love and Beauty, replacing it with the agonizingly turgid and psychotic-cerebral "Love Supreme" bag.

Johnnie was all about Love Supreme; not the mysterious squawks blown by nodding heads with hooded yellow eyes, but a Love Supreme as it could exist right then and there, if people would open up to it. Johnnie's love supreme coursed with hot blood, gleamed with late night perspiration. It was a hands on, groping, gasping musical celebration of emotional potentialities, drawn from the rhythm & blues realism and heat of Big Maybelle and LaVern Baker, all of which jazz denied in favor of avant garde junk-blind falsity. Jazz was no place for Johnnie to attempt to settle in.

The only other field in which he could frolic, rock and roll, reduced celebration of love and beauty to insignificance. The love, mystery and beauty that Elvis had first threatened the world with in 1955 became a commodity, one shouted about endlessly but never explored.

Quote Off

Huh? Jazz is about polyrhythmic arrangements, not heroin. Jazz musicians played for low prices that were approximately the same as Johnnie Ray's price after 1957. They were all ahead of their time. Many artists who don't make a lot of money are ahead of their time. Don't confuse young people. Nuff said.