Johnny Ace

Life and career

John Alexander was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of Leslie Newsome and a preacher named John Marshall Alexander. He spent his childhood near LeMoyne-Owen College. Leaving high school early, he enlisted in the United States Navy, though he was reportedly absent without leave for a large portion of his service. After leaving the Navy, he played piano with Adolph Duncan's Band on Beale Street in Memphis. This scene of local musicians, including B. B. King, Bobby Bland, Junior Parker, Earl Forest, and Roscoe Gordon, came to be called the Beale Streeters. They weren't a formal band, but they often had a leader and appeared on each other's records. In 1951, Ike Turner, who scouted talent and produced records for Modern Records, set up recording sessions for Alexander and other Beale Streeters on Turner's label. Alexander played piano on some of King's RPM Records releases and backed King during his WDIA radio broadcasts in Memphis. When King moved to Los Angeles and Bland left the group, Alexander took over Bland's singing and King's radio show on WDIA. David James Mattis, WDIA's program director and the founder of Duke Records, said he gave Alexander the stage name Johnny Ace—"Johnny" from Johnny Ray and "Ace" from the Four Aces. But Alexander's younger brother, St. Clair Alexander, said the singer himself came up with "Ace" after Mattis changed his first name from John to Johnny. Ace signed with Duke in 1952 and put out his first record, "My Song," a smooth heart ballad that stayed at number one on the R&B chart for nine weeks starting in September. He toured heavily, often with Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Over the next two years, Ace released eight straight hits, including "Cross My Heart," "The Clock," "Saving My Love for You," "Yes, Baby," "Please Forgive Me," "Never Let Me Go," and "Pledging My Love." After his solo success, the Bihari brothers at Modern put out the single "Mid Night Hours Journey" on their Flair Records label in September 1953, with "Trouble and Me" by Earl Forest on the B-side. In November 1954, Ace ranked 16th on the Billboard 1954 Disk Jockey Poll for R&B Favorite Artists. The following month, he was named the Most Programmed Artist of 1954 in a national poll of disc jockeys by the trade weekly Cash Box. His records sold strongly.

Personal life

Ace met Lois Jean Palmer, a freshman at Booker T. Washington High School, in 1949. His parents did not know they were dating until she became pregnant. Ace and Palmer were married in Earle, Arkansas, on July 17, 1950; she was 16 and he was 21. Their son, Glenn Alexander, was born later that year. Ace moved Palmer into his parents' home in Memphis. Ace was barred from the home for playing blues music, so he mostly took residence at the Mitchell Hotel, owned by Sunbeam Mitchell, in Memphis. He had another child with his wife, daughter Janet Alexander, but the couple were rarely together due to his womanizing lifestyle, and by 1953 he had abandoned his family. He also had another son named Larry Saunders, who became a singer. Ace is also the biological grandfather of singer Ledisi.

Death

Johnny Ace had been on tour for a year when he performed at the City Auditorium in Houston, Texas, on Christmas Day 1954. During a break between sets, he was handling a .32 caliber revolver. His band members later said this was a common habit; they recalled him sometimes shooting at roadside signs from their car. Many news reports claimed Ace died while playing Russian roulette, but Curtis Tillman, a bass player for Big Mama Thornton, was there and gave a different account. Tillman said Ace had been drinking and was waving the small pistol around a table. Someone warned him to be careful, and Ace replied, "It's okay! Gun's not loaded… see?" He then smiled, pointed the gun at himself, and fired. Tillman described it as a very sad event, adding that Big Mama Thornton ran out of the dressing room yelling that Johnny Ace had just killed himself. Thornton herself later wrote a statement, included in the book The Late Great Johnny Ace, saying Ace was playing with the gun but not playing Russian roulette. According to her, Ace first pointed the gun at his girlfriend and another woman nearby without firing. Then he turned the gun on himself, boasting that he knew which chamber held a bullet. The gun went off, striking him in the side of the head. Biographer Nick Tosches noted that Ace used a .32 pistol, not a .22, and that the accident happened just over an hour after Ace had bought a new 1955 Oldsmobile. Ace's funeral took place on January 2, 1955, at Clayborn Temple AME church in Memphis, with an estimated 5,000 people attending. He was buried at New Park Cemetery in Memphis. His song "Pledging My Love" became a posthumous number 1 R&B hit for ten weeks starting February 12, 1955. Billboard remarked bluntly that Ace's death created a huge demand for his record, comparable only to the surge after Hank Williams died two years earlier. Johnny Ace thus became the first performer to reach the Billboard pop charts only after his death. His singles were collected and released as The Johnny Ace Memorial Album.

Legacy

Rock-and-roll historian Harry Hepcat described Johnny Ace as a crooner with the soulful quality of Johnny Mathis. Shortly after Ace passed away, Varetta Dillard released "Johnny Has Gone" on Savoy Records in early 1955, weaving the titles of many of Ace's songs into its lyrics. That record is considered the first in a wave of teen tragedy songs that became popular later in the 1950s and early 1960s. Alongside Dillard's tribute, at least four other songs honoring Ace came out in 1955: Frankie Ervin's "Johnny Ace's Last Letter," The Rovers' "Salute To Johnny Ace," Linda Hayes' "Why, Johnny, Why?," and The Five Wings' "Johnny's Still Singing."

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez performed "Never Let Me Go" during their 1975 tour with the Rolling Thunder Revue. Luther Vandross released a cover of that same song in 1993 as the title track of his eighth studio album. Elvis Presley cut "Pledging My Love" during his final studio session in 1976, and it showed up on his album Moody Blue the following year. Paul Simon wrote and performed "The Late Great Johnny Ace" in 1983; the song tells of a boy who, learning of Ace's death, orders a photograph of the singer. The lyrics include the lines, "It came all the way from Texas/With a sad and simple face/And they signed it on the bottom/From the Late Great Johnny Ace." Simon's song also creates a poignant parallel with the deaths of John Lennon and John F. Kennedy. David Allan Coe covered "Pledging My Love," adding his own spoken memories of hearing the news of Ace's death.