Customer Reviews

Memorial Album

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The late, great Johnny Ace deserves much recognition for being a trailblazer in the genre of soul balladers. It is unfortunate that his career ended so quickly and abrubtly, but his name will forever be entwind with a warm summer breeze, a moonlit night, and the girl of our dreams. "Pledging my Love" takes on a special meaning for all born romantics lost in a moment, frozen in time. This record is a must for serious listeners of 1950's R & B.

Rock n Roll's first tragedy happened on the night of December 24th,1954 when Johnny Ace (Rock and Souls biggest sensation at the time) died from supposedly playing russian roulette. This happened almost a full 5 years before the Buddy Holly tragedy in 1959.And please people stop believing in the political non-sense that rock n roll started in 1955... The African American community had been rockin and a rollin since the late 40's with the likes of Wynonie Harris and Louis Jordan-it just took the majority of the other half a long time to get hip.Pledging my love was his posthumous crossover hit but everything he recorded was pure classic stuff. This cd contains those songs that are just as good or even better than Pledging-songs like "The Clock","Never let me go","Anymore",and "Please forgive me" and "Saving my love for you". All of these are beautiful classics that everyone from Elvis to Jackie Wilson to Brook Benton to Sinatra to James Brown all were taking notes and wishing for their day to come in the spotlight. Now an injustice has been corrected-- for Johnny Ace was Rock n Rolls very first tragedy.

P.S. And if you count in the "king of the stroll" Chuck Willis passing away in an Atlanta hospital operating room due to bleeding ulcers-Holly,Valens,and the Bopper were actually Rock n Rolls 3rd tragic ending.

This has, for thirty years, been the only collection of the late Johnny Ace's material. It's rather skimpy - 12 tracks, about thirty minutes long. But it's still great, with the selection leaning heavily on Ace's ballad work, with a few r&b ravers thrown in for variety. Just this past summer of 2005, a new Johnny Ace compilation was released with twice the amount of material and new remastering and liner notes. The new cd is the obvious version to pick up. It's about time.

The life of Johnny Ace was woefully too short, and such a tragic end. But his music lives on. Growing up in England in the 1960s it seemed all the people fresh off the planes and boats from the Caribbean bought themselves a copy of the Johnny Ace album. Whenever I hear Johnny Ace, I think back to the style and the swagger of the grown-ups back then; smoke filled rooms at the end of the work week at someone's house to chill and relax, regardless of children like me running around. The black men in their tweed suits and fedoras, the women in their stilettos and flared skirts. Cold foggy nights, card games, lots of talk... and the timeless sound of Johnny Ace wending its way through a time when there was a lot of struggle, hardship and personal tragedy. I've returned to Johnny Ace time and again over the years and each time he still sounds fresh and still serves as a soundtrack of my thoughts of times passed, steeped in memories both bitter and sweet.

I have listened to the blues kind of music for a long time and my very favorte is Johnny Ace. I wish he made more music and I wish he didn't die.

THE FIRST TIME I DISCOVERED JOHNNY ACE I WAS LISTENING TO MY PARENTS COUNSEL WHEN I WAS A LITTLE BOY.I PICKED UP THE ALBUM AND WAS FASCINATED WITH THE ART WORK ON THE ALBUM, JOHNNY'S SMILING FACE INSIDE THAT HEART SHAPED PLAYING CARD. THE ALBUM WAS THE ORIGINAL DUKE 12 INCH. I REMEMBER THE ALBUM BEING A BIT HEAVIER THAN THE OTHER RECORDS IN THE COUNSEL. I READ THE NOTES ON THE BACK OF THE ALBUM AND WAS A BIT SAD TO DISCOVER THAT JOHNNY HAD TAKEN HIS LIFE PLAYING "RUSSIAN ROULETTE". I SPOKE WITH MY FATHER AND HE EXPLAINED TO ME WHAT "RUSSIAN ROULETTE" WAS. HE THEN WENT ON TO EXPLAIN HOW ALL THE KIDS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD WERE DEVISTATED BY THE DEATH OF JOHNNY ACE. THE LIFE OF JOHNNY ACE HAS ALWAY'S INTRIGUED ME. ALTHOUGH THERE IS NOT A LOT OF MUSIC IN THE JOHNNY ACE CATALOGUE WHAT'S LEFT IS EXCELLENT AND EVEN MORE INTRIGUING THAN JOHNNY HIMSELF.

Sometimes it's hard to seperate the artist from his tragic life/death...Johnny Ace's suicide while playing russian roulette on Xmas Eve 1954 has become the stuff of legend...what is sometimes overlooked is what a fantasic singer the man was...if his music is remembered at all, it is for his posthumous hit "Pledging My Love"...while that song deserves its classic status, give a listen to the other 11 cuts on MEMORIAL ALBUM...a fine fine soulful singer with a voice like black velvet and brandy...in this age of the great nothing, Johnny Ace is the real thing....

Johnny Ace sure knew his way around a love ballad. Slow and steady as Sinatra, smooth as Dean Martin, yet his violent, senseless death hovers inevitably over every thing he recorded, making his vocals seem ghostly and haunted rather than romantic. He died backstage at a concert playing russian roulette on Christmas Eve, or so the story goes. Who plays russian roulette before they go onstage? Maybe he owed money to the wrong people and was set up but we'll never know for sure. All we have is these classic recordings and that is more than enough. "Pledging My Love" is his immortal classic and "Anymore" is it's soundalike follow up. "My Song" is his unheralded classic. Aretha Franklin's version of this must be heard as it is one of her finest recordings. He does a few uptempo jump blues numbers like "Don't You Know" and "How Can You Be So Mean" that remind me of early rock 'n roll like Bill Haley. Along with James Dean, his was one of those young deaths that greatly affected youth of his era much like Tupac or Cobain in the 90's. Paul Simon wrote "The Late Great Johnny Ace" about him on his Hearts And Bones album back in 1983. He was indeed an affecting and haunting singer and something supernatural hangs over his music. Whatever it was, it lingers still.

He made one album. But that album was genius. Gave us songs that during the years everybody has tried to sing. Saving My Love For You, My Song, Pledging My Love. And it all started here. I guess there was nothing else Johnny needed to give us.

The caption to this review has nothing to do with the fact Ace blew his brains out at age 25 while playing Russian Roulette backstage at the City Auditorium in Houston on Christmas Eve 1954. Rather, it refers to the inexplicable exclusion from the compilation of Please Forgive Me which, with the backing of Johnny Otis & His Orchestra, he took to # 6 R&B in July that year.

That, the fact that they did include some non-hits like So Lonely and Don't You Know - among his first cuts for Duke - and the lack of any informative liner notes, are the only things that prevent me from giving this CD five stars. What is included, however, easily rates four stars, beginning with his first # 1 R&B - My Song which remained on the charts for 20 weeks in 1952 - followed by Cross My Heart (# 3 R&B in February 1953) and The Clock, another # 1 that August. All were billed as Johnny Ace with The Beale Streeters, which included Bobby "Blue" Bland and drummer Earl Forest.

In fact, Ace was the piano player that same year on the Duke release Whoopin' And Hollerin', released as by Earl Forest with The Beale Streeters and which peaked at #7 R&B in April. Early in 1954 he was back on the charts with Saving My Love For You, a # 2 R&B hit that stayed around for 19 weeks. On this he was also backed by the Johnny Otis band. In the fall of 1954 he scored again with Never Let Me Go (# 9 R&B and backed by Johnny Board & His Orchestra]) and had just cut the immortal Pledging My Love with the same band when he played his stupid game.

When it peaked in February/March of 1955 it went to # 1 R&B and stayed at that position for ten of the 19 weeks it remained on the charts, also going to # 17 Billboard Pop Top 100, a spot he shared with the Teresa Brewer cover. On some issues of the Duke release the B-side was Anymore, but they soon re-released it as an A-side later in 1955, seeing it go to # 7 R&B b/w the raucous How Can You Be So Mean?

Johnny Ace, noticably lacking range and occasionally wandering off-key, was certainly no early-day Sam Cooke, but he did a credible enough job on the Washington-Robey-penned offerings like Pledging My Love and Anymore to suggest that he might well have become a fixture on the charts throughout the rest of the decade at least.

I recommend the CD as a valuable addition to any Fifties collection.