Johnnie Ray

After Frank Sinatra, and before Elvis and the Beatles, there was an unlikely pop idol - gangly, effete and adorned with a clumsy hearing aid who was met at airports by screaming girls who tore the clothes from his limbs. This man was gay and his name was Johnnie Ray.

A few months ago, on my way to my office, I was listening to Johnnie Ray's greatest hits on my car's CD player and was wondering which song would be the best to use as an introduction to Ray's sexuality. Then, his version of Hernando's Hideway started playing - and I laughed out loud. The style of the song and especially the lyrics were perfect for double entendre - I wonder if Ray realized that while he was recording it in 1954. He probably did, as would probably many of the gay people of that age. The song practically describes a cruising hot spot:

I know a dark secluded place.

A place where no one knows your face.

A glass of wine a fast embrace.

It's called Hernando's Hideaway ole!

All you see are silhouettes.

And all you hear are castanetts.

And no one cares how late it gets.

Not at Hernando's Hideaway ole!

At the golden fingerbowl or any place you go.

You'll meet your uncle Max and everyone you know.

But if we go to the spot that I am thinking of

You will be free, to gaze at me, and talk of love.

Just knock three times and whisper low,

That you and I were sent by Joe.

Then strike a match and you will know

You're in Hernando's Hideaway OLE!

John Alvin Ray was born in Dallas, Oregon, on January 10, 1927, the second child of Elmer and Hazel Ray. A savage game of Boy Scout blanket toss left Ray deaf at the age of 13. Until he was fitted with a hearing aid, his teachers considered him retarded. In this manner he passed through high school, a young man of little promise.

Ray originally wanted to be an actor, but when he was unable to find dramatic work he focused on singing. He got his big break at the Flame Show Bar, a black nightclub in Detroit, where Berry Gordy hung out and where Jackie Wilson and Lavern Baker were discovered . There he said he developed his distinctive emotional and physical style of performing. He 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, and his lyrics were infused with passion and a sense of urgency.

It was at the Flame that Danny Kessler, president of Okeh Records, Columbia's newly reactivated R&B wing, discovered Ray, inking him to a record deal and recording him with Maurice King's band. Johnnie Ray's first disc, a spare, bluesy, original titled Whiskey and Gin was released in August, 1951.

Whiskey and Gin sold well in R&B markets and with teenage girls, Columbia's head of A&R Mitch Miller took interest and signed himself on as Ray's producer. His first matter of business was to match Ray with the song Cry. Cry had gone nowhere when it was originally recorded by Ruth Casey for the obscure Cadillac label. Ray took the song and working out a head arrangement with studio musicians and the vocal group the Four Lads, rewrote it into an emotion filled plea. Stretching syllables ridiculously, his voice reached into a choking upper register that bordered on a whine.

The single dominated the charts as a double-sided hit of Cry and The Little White Cloud That Cried. Cry was a #1 US hit for 11 weeks, while the B-side The Little White Cloud That Cried charted separately and peaked at #2. Selling over two million copies of the 78rpm single, Ray's delivery struck a chord with teenagers and he quickly became a teen idol. When executives of Columbia Records, the parent company of OKeh, realized that the Caucasian Ray had developed a fan base of white listeners, he was moved over to the Columbia label.

20th Century Fox capitalized on his stardom by including him in the ensemble cast of the movie There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) alongside Ethel Merman as his mother, Dan Dailey as his father, Donald O'Connor as his brother and Marilyn Monroe as his sister-in-law.

In 1952 Ray had a number of hits. The biggest were Please, Mr. Sun (#6):

... As well as Walkin' My Baby Back Home (#4):

His biggest hit in 1953 was Somebody Stole My Gal (#8):

In 1954, except for Hernando's Hideaway (#14), his other big hit was Such a Night (#19), which was also his first #1 in the UK.

1955 was a bad year for him success-wise, but he returned with a smash hit in 1956. Just Walkin' in the Rain was another #1 for him in the UK, while it peaked at #2 in the US.

In 1957, You Don't Owe Me a Thing was a #10 hit in the US and a #12 hit in the UK.

A few months later came his last big hit. Yes Tonight Josephine made #12 in the US, but went all the way to #1 in the UK.

Except for his big hits, he had some good album tracks, like I Want To Be Loved, from his 1956 album The Big Beat.

Ray was arrested twice for soliciting men for sex. He quietly pled guilty and paid a fine after the first arrest, in the restroom of the Stone Theatre burlesque house in Detroit, which was just prior to the release of his first record in 1951. The incident wasn't reported in newspapers, and very few people outside Detroit knew about it during his sudden rise to stardom in 1952.

As he became famous he was subjected to many degrading exposes, such as can be found in early 50's issues of the vile Confidential magazine which ran feature stories like "Is It True What They Say About Johnnie Ray?", "Why Johnnie Ray Likes To Go In Drag" and "When Johnnie Ray Was Noel Coward's House Guest".

Despite her knowledge of the solicitation arrest, Marilyn Morrison, daughter of the owner of West Hollywood's Mocambo nightclub, married Ray at the peak of his American fame. Aware of Ray's sexuality, Morrison told a friend she would "straighten it out." The couple separated in 1953 and divorced in 1954.

Ray went to trial following the second arrest in 1959, also in Detroit, for soliciting an undercover officer in a bar called the Brass Rail, which has been described variously as attracting traveling musicians and attracting gay people.

Dorothy Kilgallen, a close friend of Johnnie, who 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", was a strong support for Ray during the solicitation trial in Detroit in December 1959, possibly communicating by telephone with the district attorney or judge.

Ray's fate was decided by a jury composed entirely of older women, one of whom ran to Ray to console him when he fainted upon hearing the 'not guilty' verdict. In the 60s, Ray had a long-term relationship with his manager, Bill Franklin.

Eventually the success waned, helped along by the ugly rumors and the bad publicity. One of his most loyal audiences was found in England, where he appeared many times. When Elvis arrived and eclipsed everything before him, Johnnie Ray returned to the bars and lounges, making a comfortable living.

In 1960, Ray was hospitalized after contracting tuberculosis. He was also battling with alcoholism, but in the mid 60s he made a real attempt to sober up. In 1965, he was 38 years old when he was emotionally devastated by the death of close friend Dorothy Kilgallen, but managed to stay sober despite his grief.

He began to regain his health. Shortly after he returned to the United States from a European concert tour that he headlined with Judy Garland, an American doctor informed him that he was well enough to drink an occasional glass of wine. Ray resumed drinking heavily and his health quickly began to decline. He continued touring until he gave his final concert, a benefit for the Grand Theater in Salem, Oregon, on October 6, 1989. In early 1990, poor health forced him to check into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. On February 24, 1990, he died of liver failure at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. He is buried at Hopewell Cemetery near Hopewell, Oregon.

Johnnie Ray opened the way for Elvis and the overt sexual energy of Rock & Roll and is credited by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Elton John as being a formative influence on their artistic styles.

Archival footage of Ray arriving at London Heathrow Airport in 1954 was featured in the 1982 music video for Dexys Midnight Runners' #1 hit single Come On Eileen. The lyrics of the song also mention him: "Poor old Johnnie Ray sounded sad upon the radio / He moved a million hearts in mono."

Ray is one of the cultural touchstones mentioned in the first verse (concerning events from the late 1940s and early 1950s) of Billy Joel's 1989 hit single We Didn't Start the Fire, between Red China and South Pacific.

Ray was name-checked by Van Morrison in his duet with Tom Jones titled Sometimes We Cry that was released in 1997.