Johnny Ace Crosses Over: A Meditation on Fame

Tom Maxwell

It's Christmas night, 1954, between sets for a "Negro Christmas dance" at the City Auditorium in Houston, Texas. A sharp crack from a .22 caliber pistol ends the life of John Marshall Alexander, Jr. He was only 25 years old. Although the official report claimed accidental suicide as a result of Russian Roulette, rumors circulate to this day suggesting that John Alexander was murdered -- probably over publishing money.

I have always known that Johnny Ace pulled the trigger.

One achieves fame in this culture largely through the creation of a persona, identified with artistic, political or notorious acts. This persona is then given mass exposure. Such fame has been bestowed upon -- and often taken from -- thousands of people over time. The key to lasting fame as an artist is a lifetime of consistent, quality work that continues to merit such exposure. "Consistency," in this case, means perseverance in a similar style as opposed to continually excellent but diverse contributions. Artists who die young, in the trajectory of ascension, are virtually guaranteed renown. Examples abound throughout the history of popular music. Let's discuss two.

Two sides of the same coin. Robert Johnson and Kurt Cobain, like Johnny Ace, were on one-way trains to self-destruction.

Like Johnny Ace, Robert Johnson recorded only a handful of songs for a targeted ("negro") audience. There are only two known pictures of him, and he died a violent death while still in his twenties. Had he not been poisoned on that fateful night, in two weeks he was due in New York to appear in the massively successful "From Spirituals to Swing" program put on by John Hammond in Carnegie Hall. Johnson was presaged by Skip James, whom Johnson covered/borrowed from, and who many think was his superior. But James didn't die after recording less than twenty songs for Paramount in 1930; he languished in obscurity before being dug up by enthusiasts in the 60's for more touring and recording. At this point he was an old man, essentially covering the same material done in his youth. Although his singing was even better, any potential mystique of James' earlier career was diluted. Johnson, however, was safely dead. The mythology surrounding his life, art and demise was building rapidly. Not only were ascendant white stars like Eric Clapton and Keith Richards paying him homage, there was a persistent rumor that Johnson had made a pact with the Devil at a crossroads in Mississippi to gain his extraordinary talent and appeal. He is now popularly regarded as the master of the Delta blues.

Like Ace and Johnson, Kurt Cobain only recorded a few songs, created a popular persona, and died young. He too initially recorded for a targeted audience -- "grunge," or "alternative." His rise was much more immediate and sustained than the other two, given the ability of the industry to capitalize on it more expeditiously. His combination of considerable talent and lost potential will forever outlast the tragic figure behind the image. He is now regarded as almost the savior of rock and roll.

The King (of Creepy). "If Elvis sang 'black,' then Johnny Ace sang 'white.'

None of these people had the chance to either fall from grace through artistic compromise or outlive their cultural relevance. They didn't meaningfully diverge from the artistic formula that initially brought them recognition. They also died young, making their personas and musical contributions ripe for commodification. In effect, they have been turned into glass figurines to be lovingly dusted off, then put back on the shelf.

Johnny Ace was the stage name adopted by John Alexander. Those who wish to know more about both personas should read James M. Salem's excellent book "The Late Great Johnny Ace." Alexander grew up poor in a bad section of Houston, and (after a short stint in the Navy), moved to Memphis. It was there, in the early 50's, that he started his musical career. Although he was neither the most talented or influential artist to emerge from that period, Alexander was in the right place at the right time. Sun Records was documenting an astonishing cultural synthesis. Black and white idioms were colliding and throwing off beautiful sparks. Alexander performed and recorded with many major talents, including B.B. King, Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton, Johnny Otis, and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. He played piano in a largely apocryphal band dubbed "The Beale Streeters" which included singer Bobby "Blue" Bland. It quickly became obvious that Alexander (now Ace) had vocal abilities of his own. He specialized in what became known as "heart ballads," and recorded several of them: "Angel," "My Song," "Cross My Heart," and "Pledging My Love" -- his big hit, released three days before his death and later covered by Aretha Franklin. These sides were straight-up make-out music, and very popular in the black community. His other recordings are up-tempo rhythm and blues rockers.

"Pledge My Love" -- Johnny Ace's big hit. "These sides were straight-up make-out music."

If Elvis sang "black," then Johnny Ace sang "white," but not in the personable, expert style of Nat "King" Cole. All of Ace's ballads are unsettling if not down right creepy. The band (usually the Johnny Otis or Johnny Board Orchestra) lurch through the funereal tempos, with piano, drums, bass, sax and vibes all showing a certain lack of chops if not sincerity. Tuning is clearly optional. Everyone is playing at the same time, partially unaware of what the others are doing, and yet creating an organic, united environment. The overall ambience is of instruments in a small room, heavily laden with reverb and tape delay; sometimes both. Production values are primitive, especially compared to the amazing quality of Ray Charles' contemporary offerings. Ace is the blinking radio tower in this barren musical landscape: remote, distant and alone. There is almost an overwhelming sense of emotional detachment and longing in his voice. The entire effect is nothing so much as an R&B "Hall of Presidents," in which "emotional" songs are delivered by a group of primitive automatons. Few other performers (Howlin' Wolf, Skip James, Robert Johnson and Fats Waller's pipe organ sides come to mind) have been able to capture and sustain such an unearthly quality.

The lyrics can be dismissed as maudlin overstatement and high-school hyperbole:

Be with me, right here in my arm (sic).
You're my queen. You'll always be.
I cross my heart, and hope to die
If I should ever, ever make you cry.

I would suggest, however, that they employ cliché for a higher purpose -- transcendent, non-transient stillness. "Always" and "forever" appear so often in these lyrics as to suggest something more than sentimentality:

I'll forever love you, the rest of my days
I'll never part from you and your loving ways.

Clearly, this singer is interested in something beyond the moment. Upon listening, one is almost immediately transported into the world created by Johnny Ace. On the surface, this worldview revolves around the triumph of love and the pain of loss. Deeper down, it describes a longing for existence in the comparatively still hub of life's wheel instead of its whirring, tumultuous spokes. The song "The Clock" sums it up nicely. It's probably the slowest of all Johnny Ace songs, the dragging tempo underscored by an echo effect on the drums.

I look at the face of the clock on the wall
And it doesn't tell me nothing at all
That face on the clock just stares at me
It knows I'm lonely and always will be

The ultimate goal of these performances is to stop time itself, or stretch it as close to infinity as possible. "Angel" and "Cross My Heart" more easily suggest a nightmarish, Lynchian murderer/lover figure than an amorous suitor. After all, an angel (like one's fame) lives forever. The object of desire in the song is also compared to a ghost:

You may not know, but you haunt me
You may not know, but it's true
Oh my dear, you're an angel
I'll always be in love with you

It's easy to imagine Johnny singing to a picture, or mannequin -- or corpse. Complicated and messy human interactions are carefully excised. This band, this singer, recording in that time, successfully stepped outside of temporal bounds.

But back in the dressing room that Christmas night, Johnny Ace had been dealt his last hand. Apparently, the grind of touring 300+ dates a year had taken its toll -- he had gained 25 pounds and had grown a moustache, negating his boyish charm. He had also been in possession of the handgun for several weeks prior to his death, and was given to pointing the unloaded weapon at friends and associates and pulling the trigger. After exhibiting this unpleasant behavior again in the dressing room between sets, he put the gun to his head, saying, "I'll show you how it works."

He left behind one of the smallest and most internally consistent bodies of works by any artist. He only recorded 21 songs.

Immediately after his death, "Pledging My Love" shot up the charts. Tribute songs "Johnny Ace's Last Letter" and "Why Johnny Why" were hurriedly recorded and released. The myth machine went into overdrive. It was rumored that Big Mama Thornton (who shared the bill with Ace that night) was on Johnny's lap when he shot himself. Some witnesses describe Ace's normally kinky hair standing straight up as he died. Other rumors place Elvis in the crowd at the Civic Auditorium. There are some now that argue that "Pledging My Love" is the first rock and roll song (although it doesn't rock), because it crossed over: it was bought in droves by white teenagers and played on white radio stations. A young Paul Simon received a publicity shot of Johnny Ace he had sent away for, and years later wrote a song about it:

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"

John Marshall Alexander, Jr. will remain forever obscure. Clearly, a combination of emotional instability, modest success, shady record and publishing deals, and constant touring rendered him ultimately incapable of going on. Johnny Ace, on the other hand, had set himself up all along for immortality. There's almost nothing in his recorded body of work that doesn't intimate or long for it.

For my own part, I first saw the Johnny Ace Memorial Album in a friend's dorm room. Johnny is on the cover, as the Ace of Hearts. He wears a bland, toothy smile. One of his heavy-lidded eyes is on the camera and the other fixed on some point distant. I didn't pay much attention to his music until years later, drunk and piled into the back of a car. Johnny Ace music poured from the speakers, and I looked at the rural landscape rushing by. When I saw the distant radio tower I understood. I've loved his music ever since, and was able to find another copy of the Memorial Album (his only record-still in print) with different songs on it: "Angel," "No Money."

More That Matters

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"Private Press, indeed. DJ Shadow has ironically withdrawn further into himself the more public he's become. Which is a good thing, because he's a brilliant artist whose bad ideas are better than the majority of the good ideas littering the musical landscape."

"That stuff is just marketing. I don't give a fuck about it. I feel comfortable being called a punk band, because I feel that's what we came out of."

"And that's where some of the roots of this are: bizarre delusions in the minds of people with too much time on their hands that somehow I deprived them of being major label rock stars."

"I think that there's been a lot of difficulty in defining what is American, what is considered American. There's a lot of difficulty with acceptance within our community of foreignness at this time."

When the Zippers first toured the Midwest in 1997, I made several musical pilgrimages. Ken Mosher and I visited Sun records, conning our way into the recording studio. Afterwards, we went to Ardent studio and met Jody Stephens, former Big Star drummer. He gave me Jim Dickenson's number, and he and I discussed Johnny Ace at length. He told me he had a picture of Ace in his coffin. I later saw that picture in Salem's book.

In Houston, I met a guy who told me the Civic Auditorium still existed. I stuffed a couple beers in my coat and we drove downtown. The original structure was indeed still there, but had been bizarrely and inappropriately added onto in the 60's. A strange steel and glass structure had been raised around the original brick building. We walked in, and found several construction workers inside. No one seemed to notice us, although I had made up a story to cover our intrusion. We found two identical, cramped dressing rooms on either side of the stage. One "felt right," and we opened our beers, toasted Johnny Ace, and drank. Weeks later, my Houston friend (who was a paralegal) went to the city records department and found the police and coroner's reports from that Christmas night. He faxed them to me, and I read the handwritten eyewitness accounts for myself.

The next time we came through Houston they were tearing the Auditorium down. Johnny Ace lives on.

11 October 2002

Tom Maxwell helped lead the gifted Squirrel Nut Zippers into neo-Swing infamy before embarking on a solo career, fatherhood, and a quest to completely own his artistic output. So far, it's going great (fatherhood, that is).