Johnny Ace

I have this thing for brill building pop from the 50's and the early 60's. You might or might not know that. Generic, calculative pop performed by generic artists, all of them are called Bobby or Tommy, designed to attract the tastes of 14 year old girls - the stereotype of a 'girl' - suddenly turns into something quite magic. The songs tend to be about death. Violent death: car crashes. Puppy-eyed artists with silly hairdos croon about lost love in a manner that sometimes succeeds in sounding like the apocalypse draws near. The sound of the recordings is usually hollow and thick at the same time - after all these years, the effect is spooky. The attempt to create a "white" and "family-friendly" sound only adds to the dimension of spookiness. I have no idea how people reacted to it back then. The sweetness of the songs always verges of something utterly perverse. The innocence of teeny bop love might not be what it appears to be. There might be some blood in your milkshake, baby. A monster is lurking 'round that icecream bar corner.

All of this, and more, is captured in the songs of Johnny Ace. He did not, however, really belong to the brill building corps, I take it. He does pop, but also blues. The combination is great. There's a lot of raunchy&sultry saxophone and the adding of groovy xylophones on many tracks makes me think of Tim Buckley (which is weird). "Pledging my love" is one of his better known songs. Johnny Ace makes sleazy music the way I like it, to be enjoyed with a pint or seven. Damn! I love that saxophone.

Johnny Ace served in the navy during ww2. He was in the same band as Bobby "Blue" Bland. The music they made as solo artists have much in common: the soulful crooning, the blues, pop sensibility. He did tours with another fantastic blues artist - Big Mama Thornton. She did 'Hound dog' in such a way that Elvis' version bleakens in comparison. In 1954, Johnny Ace played a game of russian roulette with his girlfriend and a friend of hers. He pointed the gun at them, but the hammer fell on an empty chamber. When it was his turn, it did not.