Most respondents did not know who Johnny Ace is. Johnny Ace was the first true rock star. You might have thought it was Elvis but Elvis was the second. By the time Elvis was just getting started on Sun Records, Johnny Ace was already dead. His real name was John Alexander and he came from Memphis. He played piano as a boy going to church. In WW2, he served in the Navy. After he got out, he started gigging around in jump blues bands as a pianist. He did, however, have a nice singing voice and cut a couple of sides for Sun in 1950 but these are now lost.
In one band, he met Robert Bland and together they split to join up with B.B. king as members of his Sepiatones house band for the all-black station WDIA in Memphis for a blues program hosted by King. A few months later, King left the band to go to LA and record for Modern Records. Bland took over the Sepiatones as Bobby "Blue" Bland. He ended up getting drafted by '52 so Alexander took over as pianist and singer. He did so well that WDIA signed him to a recording contract for their own label--Peacock. His manager was a Houston entrepreneur named Don Robey who renamed Alexander as Johnny Ace. Between 1952 and 1954, everything Ace put out (much of it co-written by Robey who was a brilliant songwriter who also wrote for Bland and Big Mama Thornton) shot to #1 on the R&B charts.
Ace did slow, mellow love ballads and heavy jump blues bashers with equal pizzazz. He seemed perfectly at home in both styles. His piano playing is top-notch. White kids began to notice Ace and started buying his records. They began calling the radio stations requesting an Ace song to dedicate to some dreamy boyfriend or girlfriend and rock and roll as a cultural phenomenon was born. Ace toured with Big Mama on the chitlin' circuit--a grueling nonstop schedule. On Christmas Day in Houston in 1954, Johnny Ace left the stage after completing his first show. The crowd was in a frenzy. He had a 5 minute break and had to get ready for the next show. Ace's girlfriend sat on his lap as somehow a revolver was produced. Ace pointed it at a couple of people apparently funning around. He then pointed it at his temple, pulled the trigger and blew his brains out. To this day, no one is sure why.
Johnny Ace was a huge influence on people as widely divergent musically as John Lennon and David Alan Coe (who loved Ace so much that, for years, he could not sing Ace's last and posthumous hit "Pledging My Love" without breaking into tears). Lennon's "Happy Xmas (the War is Over)" sounds as though he was tipping his hat to Ace since Ace died on Christmas and the melody is very reminiscent of "Pledging My Love". Paul Simon wrote a song called "The Late Great Johnny Ace." When he played it live once, he used "Pledging My Love" as an intro.
Some wonder why Ace has been forgotten. True, his career was only two years long but so was Buddy Holly's and Holly is a legend. The sad truth is racism. Ace has been forgotten because he was black at a time when it was not as fashionable as it is today. But the true rocknroll fans of that era have never forgotten him. He was the first rocknroll star.
Johnny Ace - Never Let Me Go 1954 Duke 132 78rpm(original song). - YouTube
Johnny Ace - No Money - Great Early 50's Jump Blues / R&B Rocker (78 RPM) - YouTube
PS - WDIA's label was Duke. Robey owned an entertainment empire called Peacock. When he bought Ace's contract, the label was still officially Duke but was called Duke-Peacock. Sorry, my bad.