The Death of Johnny Ace

By Steve Bergsman

The tale of Johnny Ace starts in the late 1940s as a young man returns from the Navy to his hometown of Memphis trying to figure out what to do in life. The man, Johnny Alexander, will eventually make his way to Beale Street, the epicenter of the blues culture in the United States; successfully launch his recording career as Johnny Ace; and battle against his record company, owned by African-American music mogul Don Robey.

His career saw him jamming with musical greats such as B.B. King, Ike Turner, Bobby Bland, Roscoe Gordon, Johnny Otis, Junior Parker, Rufus Thomas and Big Mama Thornton. Although largely forgotten now, Johnny Ace was the biggest star in R&B – a teen idol – in the early 1950s.

Eventually Johnny Ace works his way to the fateful concert in Houston Auditorium, where a moment of violence ends his life. Did Johnny Ace think he could beat Russian roulette one more time? Or, did something else happen in that backstage dressing room crowded with girlfriends, record people and a very angry Don Robey?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Bergsman
• Release date: Jan 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9780987689795

Steve Bergsman

Steve Bergsman is a longtime journalist who has written over a dozen books. His recent ones include coauthorship with Carol Connors of Elvis, “Rocky” and Me; Earth Angels: The Short Lives and Controversial Deaths of Three R&B Pioneers; What a Difference a Day Makes: Women Who Conquered 1950s Music; All I Want Is Loving You: Popular Female Singers of the 1950s; and coauthorship with Rosa Hawkins of Chapel of Love: The Story of New Orleans Girl Group the Dixie Cups, the latter three published by University Press of Mississippi.

Book preview

The Death of Johnny Ace

a novel

by Steve Bergsman

2012 Dancing Traveller Publishing ebook edition

Dancing Traveller Publishing, Vancouver (Canada)

www.DancingTravellerMedia.ca

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting this author by not lending or sharing this e-book.

This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and articles. In Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence can be obtained from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency):

www.AccessCopyright.ca.

Request for permission to reprint anything in this book must be made in writing to the publisher: [e-mail].

Copyright © 2012 Steve Bergsman

ISBN: 978-0-9876897-8-8 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-9876897-9-5 (ebook)

Praise for The Death of Johnny Ace

A must read for any fan

of contemporary American Music!"

- Steve Senk, former

Executive Director of Sony Music

Long before the ultimate culmination of the self-destructive impulses of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain, there was the shocking and mysterious death of Johnny Ace. Steve Bergsman puts a totally new spin on the fascinating saga of a pioneer of rock and roll in this entertaining novel – certain to become a future classic in the what if? genre.

- Al Abrams, Founding Publicist, Motown Records / Author, Hype & Soul: Behind the Scenes at Motown

Author Steve Bergsman brings the almost forgotten Johnny Ace back to life in this nostalgic look at that long-ago period – before the rise of the Motown Record Company – when pioneering black vocalists were starting to sell records to white buyers. Ace was one of the vocalists leading the charge and only his own gun in his own hand could bring him down. In this brilliant, novelistic account, Bergsman not only illuminates the era but tracks Ace’s rise and tragically early suicide with wisdom and understanding.

- Peter Benjaminson, Author of Mary Wells: The Tumultuous Life of Motown’s First Superstar

The restless ghost of Johnny Ace steps out of the jukebox and into these pages. This is as close as most of us are going to get to the R&B scene of 1950s Beale Street and the tangled roots of rock ‘n roll.

- Paul Bauer, Coathor of Frazier Robinson’s autobiography Catching Dreams: My Life in Negro Baseball Leagues and Coathor of Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler

This novel rockets Johnny Ace to his rightful place among musical artists of the 1950s who helped rhythm & blues give birth to rock ‘n’ roll. What James Dean was to mid-1950s American cinema, Johnny Ace was to mid-1950s R&B music. A must read for any fan of contemporary American Music!

- Steve Senk, former Executive Director of Sony Music

The haunting question … was the death of Johnny Ace suicidal or accidental? The Death of Johnny Ace is an intriguing story depicting a grassroots view of the music industry and some of its greatest talents forging their way into American history during a racially challenged time. From the midst of this era and the blending of crossover music cultures emerged a rising star, the late teen idol, Johnny Ace. Through the storyteller’s eyes, we connect with Johnny and experience his humble discovery, his rising stardom and his struggle with record company management during his all too brief journey leading up to the controversial and tragic ending of his life. A great story in search of an answer!

- Donna Sweikow, Lead Singer CopperHill Band

Bergsman weaves encyclopedic tidbits from the careers of rhythm & blues pioneers and unscrupulous deal makers into a fictional account that contextualizes the life and death of Johnny Ace, an artist who for a brief moment was one of rhythm & blues’ first crossover superstars. Ace is characterized as a singer and pianist on the cusp of national stardom, but a penchant for guns ultimately robs America of the opportunity to experience his talent. By the end, the reader will be left lamenting the promise and success that could have belonged to Johnny Ace.

- Frank M. Johnson, Musicologist

The Death of Johnny Ace kept me interested, impressed. I kept picturing myself as being a part of the story and wondering what was going to happen in the upcoming sentence, paragraph. The book has a style of a mystery and a first- and second-person narrative, which will keep the readers interested, especially for music history buffs.

- Ra Shawn Da-Professor Chisolm, Blogger/Music Enthusiast

Steve Bergsman brings to life the true story of Johnny Ace, one of the biggest R&B superstars of the 1950s, who died at a young age and has since been largely forgotten by music lovers. You just can’t help but buy all of Johnny Ace’s songs after reading this well researched and entertaining true story about one young black man’s journey through the world of the segregated and cut-throat 1950s music industry.

- Paul Alves, Host of The Book Guys Show

Johnny Ace definitely is one of the unsung pioneers of Rock‘n’Roll whose life story and conflicting stories surrounding his tragic death are not known by many. But in the novel, The Death of Johnny Ace, author Steve Bergsman writes about a colorful era of rhythm and blues as well as Rock‘n’Roll during the early 1950s, chronicling Ace’s life, music career and events leading up to Ace’s death with great historic detail. B.B. King, Willa Mae Big Mama Thornton and Johnny Ace were big names during that time and Bergsman lets readers know that they all were contemporaries.

- Mike Sakal, Columnist at the East Valley Tribune

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Houston, December 24, 1954

Chapter Two: New York, a recent spring day

Chapter Three: Memphis, 1949

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER ONE

HOUSTON, DECEMBER 24, 1954

If the stockings were carefully hung by the chimney in the hope that St. Nick would soon be there, no one at that moment in the Houston City Auditorium realized it. The ground floor of the cavernous hall was filled with Negro teenagers; scattered in the smaller balcony were a surprising number of white teenagers. The groups were separated by space, clothes, and behavior. Upstairs, the young people, mostly young men, dressed neatly, eschewing the standard dungarees that many wore during the day. They slouched, hung cool, and chatted in small groups when no one was on stage, and watched and listened in earnestness when talent did appear.

In contrast, the first floor was a bustle of non-stop activity. On stage, a four-man combo of young Negro musicians was pumping out a fast blues number, and in the audience, small cliques of kids danced in the aisles, while others aimlessly strolled about, headed for the food counters where the lines were long, or greeted friends generally by an intricate, almost religious, slapping of hands.

Some of the young adults were dressed in their Sunday clothes while others wore strange costumes of shiny, loud shirts, tight-fitting black pants, and elaborate hair. Occasionally, somewhere in the auditorium, one could find gatherings of young girls out to their first concert, dressed carefully in hoop skirts, matching sweaters, and even white gloves. Out of frustration they would tap on the shoulders of the people in the row ahead and whisper for them to be quiet. To no avail; the music was loud and boisterous and most of the teens wanted to jump and jive.

The room jostled with nervous energy, movement. A cloud seemed to hover over the audience as cigarette smoke willowed through the spotlights, which seemed to originate from somewhere in the back of the hall.

The combo’s saxophone player stepped to the front of the stage and began a long, high wail, which he then rolled into a fierce bounty of melody. The noise caught the ear of even those whose attention had drifted away from the stage. From behind, the other three musicians supported the sax player in a mad frenzy of musicianship. Energy pulsated from the combo and more kids got up to dance, crowding to the flat area in front of the stage. In a set piece of physical performance, the saxophone player slid to the very lip of the stage, never taking the instrument from his mouth. The crowd cheered while those who had already commandeered the area before the stage reached up to touch the sax player, egging him on with their contact.

Beyond the seats and the hall, the music seeped behind doors so that even the girls who had crowded into the bathroom could still hear the set. They re-brushed their hair, applied lipstick, gossiped and squealed, hugged each other, and rarely made it to the stalls to pee. Outside in the hall, a fight was quickly broken up by security and the two combatants, who never really got in more than a few pushes, wandered away.

The band continued to flail at their instruments.

The commotion played out in stark contrast to those small movements and gestures involved with the name performers who had yet to make their way to the stage. The headliners, such as Johnny Ace and Big Mama Thornton, were designated small dressing rooms, really simple affairs with a table, chairs, closets, lounge chair, and, most importantly, a mirror. Every performer needs a mirror, and although the dressing rooms were not large or grandly decorated, they had a good size dressing table mirror and a second large mirror so the performers could see what they looked like in total outfit, whatever the outfit they’d be wearing when ready to go on stage.

Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton loved to perform, which she had been doing since she was a child. Like Johnny Ace, her father had been a minister, and her first performances were for his congregation. She was a big-boned girl who always looked older than her peers, and no one thought it unusual when, at the age of 14, she left her Montgomery, Alabama, home to sing with the Hot Harlem Revue, which was a troupe that began in Georgia, having really nothing to do with Harlem in New York City.

While not a small woman, she wasn’t unattractive in her younger years. When Don Robey saw her perform at a Houston nightclub, he had immediately come courting, for both business and pleasure. She signed to his Peacock label in 1951 and they celebrated that very night, drinking whiskey and ballin’ the jack until the wee hours of the morning.

Over the past three years it had seemed to Thornton that her relationship with Robey had become a memory, which was okay with both of them since each sought the sexual pleasure of others whenever the opportunity arose. And as Robey used to say, business was business. That was also good because Thornton knew the violent side of Robey’s nature, having seen him lose his temper and bash a man’s face with a whiskey bottle. She reckoned it was never too good to remain close to a flame.

Still he managed to surprise her—to the good—on occasion. About two weeks before, on her twenty-eighth birthday, he had flowers delivered to her dressing room. It was the only time in her whole life she had ever received flowers and she damn near cried.

In fact, Thornton was always surprised that Robey remained incredibly loyal to her, doing whatever was needed to support her career, which she knew would benefit Peacock Records. But she sensed that Robey went out of his way for her. No matter what happened in the future, she would always be in his debt for giving her the song Hound Dog, written by two young Jewish guys named Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and having her record with Johnny Otis. Where Leiber and Stoller came from, she had no idea—although she had reckoned that since Robey often said he was a black Jew, maybe he had a soft spot for Jewish songwriters.

It seemed like a basic blues number and even she was shocked when it vaulted to the number one position on the rhythm & blues charts just the year before. Since she knew everyone wanted to hear her sing it, she decided to always open with the song and get the expectation out of the way, and then she figured the audience would actually listen to her other less well-known songs. While Hound Dog was great, she much preferred the wailing blues number Ball ‘n’ Chain that allowed her to just dive into the song as if it was a bowl of mashed potatoes. On a good night, Thornton would give everything she had left to the song and she used it to close her shows. She always figured it was that number, more than even Hound Dog, that people remembered her by after a show and for that reason she was as popular as she was with live audiences.

Even Thornton knew she was no beauty, and as the years passed, she was quickly losing anything resembling a figure. Big Mama really didn’t mind getting fat and, in fact, earning the nickname, since she much preferred a night of good eating—if that was followed by a couple of rounds of hard drinking—then that made for a perfect night. At 28 and with a waistline that was expanding, the sex escapades were, like her affair with Robey, becoming a memory as well.

For the Christmas Eve bash, Thornton had chosen a simple white dress that belted at the waist. It allowed her to look thinner than she was. The dress was long, hanging all the way to her ankles, and blossomed out at the hips. It was also cut with short sleeves, which Thornton preferred because she wanted the freedom of movement with her arms and hands. She knew she was no dancer, so all her expression came from above the waist.

The evening passed slowly in her dressing room. A friend had brought in dinner, consisting of fried chicken, potatoes, and corn bread. They downed the meal with beer that had gone warm. The friend helped her get dressed, and now she was standing in the wings waiting for her introduction. They were all the same now, with a deep emphasis on the words Big Mama, which made her feel welcome.

Wiping beads of sweat from her face, Willie Mae Thornton counted to three after the introductions were complete and then strolled confidently across the stage. The audience burst into huge, raucous applause with screams, whistle-blowing, and wild clapping. A lot of young people in the seats were yelling at her to sing this song or that, but on the stage she couldn’t make out one word from another. Regally, she took it all in and waited, as she knew the applause would eventually, suddenly evaporate. At that precise moment, she turned slightly to her band. As the music began to light up, she grabbed her microphone with one hand and began snapping the fingers of her free hand. Like a bolt of lightning she was on it, and the crowd erupted once again. It was what they wanted to hear.

Willie Mae had taken to cropping her hair short, which gave her a mannish look because of the rather lengthy way the hair grew like sideburns in front of her ears. Her skin was very dark, and in the smoky haze of the auditorium, it seemed to glow with the lights. While waiting for her set, Big Mama had a few drinks to get easy, and when it was time to hit it, she immediately went into a throaty, rasping sound that she strung out like a kite slowly easing into the sky: Youuuuu … ain’t … nothin’ … but a hound dog, snooping around my door. It was a tease for the audience, which burst into a cheering, messy cacophony. By the time she rolled through You can wag your tail, but I ain’t gonna feed you no more, the audience was on their feet, yelling and singing along.

There was a long guitar break in the song, which allowed Big Mama to talk to the band, encouraging them to play it because it makes her feel so good. She followed it with yelps and howls and blandishments, all of which further whipped the crowd into a frenzy. By the time she came around a second time through the stanzas, groups had spilled over into the aisles to dance and jive on the stairs.

Out in the auditorium, the audience continued to howl and bark even as the band brought down the music to a close. There was barely a person left sitting. Bopping and clapping, the crowd screamed their appreciation. Big Mama knew she got it right; she knew she hit it perfectly and raised one arm in triumph.

Behind the stage, a pop of a sound exploded and then disappeared. The drummer turned to look, but the curtains obscured his view to offstage. The rest of the band seemed to have missed it as they kept their eyes on Big Mama, waiting for her cue for the next song. The drummer lifted off his stool for one last try to see what the noise was and again there was no view, so he too gazed toward Big Mama, who was waiting for the din to subside so she could launch the next song.

It all happened so quickly. Someone ran onto the stage, Big Mama Thornton gasped, and then departed stage right. An emcee said there had been an accident backstage and that Johnny Ace had been seriously injured. He said he understood everyone was disappointed, but reiterated that Johnny Ace had suffered a serious injury and the remainder of the show would have to be cancelled. He asked that everyone file out of the auditorium as quickly as possible.

After the remarks, the emcee disappeared, as did the band, leaving the stage briefly empty before a line of security began moving in. For a long string of minutes no one budged in the audience; they couldn’t comprehend that the show could be over so abruptly. There were murmurs of unpleasantness and upset girls. There was yelling to the stage and asking for money back. The closure came so fast and for most of the young audience, this had been their first real concert. They weren’t experienced enough to do anything but what was told of them.

All the doors opened. From the edges of the auditorium, bodies slowly began to head to the light. Some of the youngsters milled about, others confronted security, the police, and staff, asking what had happened. No one knew anything, which made it worse. Then rumors started to pick up. Small words. Johnny Ace had been shot. Someone had shot Johnny Ace. An old girlfriend. The police.

From the city streets came the sounds of sirens and whirring and flashing of red lights. An ambulance arrived, followed by police cars. Police cars seemed to be everywhere. Everyone was told to move on. Many tried to find public telephones to call their parents. Others simply started the long walk home. After awhile, cars driven by parents began moving into the parking lots and nearby streets.

A group of about 50 young teenagers had been ushered out a side entrance where they were confronted by the loud immediacy of the sirens as the ambulance and police cars skidded to a halt just in front of them. They all stopped, including a group of four, a young man and three young women. The young man held one of his cousin’s hands.

Two policemen came to where the group was standing. They didn’t chase them away, only made sure they would not come closer. The small crowd was now beginning to get larger as others filed out of the side door into the confusion. Another policeman joined the first two. One of the cousins, still not knowing the seriousness of the injury to Johnny Ace, whispered to the boy, I bet you don’t see anything like this in New York. The boy didn’t say anything, just continued to watch the door to the back of the building where ambulance personnel went through with their gurney.

A teenager of about 17 years of age asked one of the policemen if the ambulance was for Johnny Ace. The policeman didn’t know. A second policeman asked someone in the crowd who Johnny Ace was. Meanwhile, some of the performers began to enter the back parking lot. A big woman appeared and then went back into the building. Someone said it was Big Mama Thornton, but the boy with the cousins said no and he seemed to know what Big Mama Thornton looked like.

Minutes dragged on. And dragged on. The teenagers who had ended up there stayed. No one left. There were now about 100 young people gathered. Then a couple of policemen rushed out the door followed by one of the ambulance workers. Someone yelled, They’re bringing a body out! Even the policemen turned to look.

It took some effort to maneuver the gurney through the door. A teenage girl gasped as the feet of the person on the gurney came into sight first. The wheels of the gurney bumped on the doorstop and one of the cousins burst into tears. She knew it was Johnny Ace before she saw the whole body come by. There were a lot of people now running back and forth. The gurney was out, caught in a no man’s land between the building and the ambulance.

A doctor standing at the end of the moving bed stepped away. Oh my God, screamed a young girl at the front of the crowd. The two girls next to her fainted. There was blood on the bandages and the sheets. Lots of blood. The friend of the cousins simply broke down in tears, as did a number of other bystanders.

A woman ran out of the door and grabbed a hand of the person on the gurney. The doctor whispered to her and she went ahead to the ambulance. A policeman moved up and helped the doctor apply thick bandages to the head. No one really could quite see who was being moved to the ambulance. They didn’t have to. They knew it was their beloved Johnny Ace.

The crowd, so many people weeping now, watched the body being lifted into the ambulance, the door closing, and it and two police cars drove past, picking up speed and eventually fading into the night with the sirens trailing a long time after the vehicles were gone from sight.

The boy cousin from New York held onto his two cousins and their friend and directed them back up through the parking lot to the main road. The three girls were crying almost beyond redemption. When they got to the main street, he didn’t know which way to turn. He stopped to look back at the auditorium. For some reason, he tapped his chest and then reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the blue ticket to the concert. He looked at it carefully and then placed it back into safety. It was time to get everyone home.

CHAPTER TWO

NEW YORK, A RECENT SPRING DAY

Johnny Ace is dead.

I winced.

For a very long time.

That’s why I’m here, I finally responded.

Professor William Harkness frowned. What’s with you and dead people?

What do you mean?

The Professor, my affectionate name for him, gave me a look that clearly let me know I was feigning ignorance. But I wasn’t. At least I didn’t think I was.

"Do you think I don’t notice your bylines? Any time a pop singer dies, you get hired by some slick magazine to write the bio. I bet I can