Anyone hear about Johnnie Ray? (cac singer from the 50s)

[Fill Collins]

I was going through a box of records I got and there was this single (side b):


I looked the guy up, turns out he was a deaf farm boy from Oregon who moved to Detroit to sing and play piano (he got a hearing aid),

On top of that, he was everything cacs want you to think Elvis was:

• He openly called for total desegregation
• He would always mention how Black people fed, clothed, and saved his life
• Gave to charities and started a school for the deaf as soon as he got his first big check
• In a more fact, his early demo was confused as being one from a Black woman and he wasn't from Harlem
• He was also the first sad whiny cac who ever cried and had panic attacks on stage, respect
• He was a personal friend of the Black writer of his 1951 hit, "Cry", Churchill Colman

Here's a documentary about him, kind of



The man is pretty interesting and the music is something

 

[Fill Collins]

Bump, Marvin Gaye would do "Distant Lover" as a tribute to Johnnie Ray