They All Had Their Own Story

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It should’ve happened… multiple hits, a massive career, world recognition and all the rest.

He’s been called ROCK’N ROLL’S FIRST FATALITY.

He had just finished his performance at the Houston

Civic Auditorium.   It was Christmas Eve 1954 and in

the presence of Big Mama Thorton, B.B. King, and

maybe a dozen others, JOHNNY ACE pulled out his

recently purchased gun, put it to his right temple…

pulled the trigger, once.

Johnny had been a member of the famed Beale

Streeters; which included Bobby Blue Bland,

Roscoe Gordon, B.B. King. Everything he had recorded

had ranked topside in the R&B charts; two years straight. He was just weeks away from the release of what

would become his lone pop breakthrough hit, “Pledging My Love.”

Recording artist, Buddy Ace, Johnny’s brother, believes that the label owner, Don Robey, had him

murdered. John sister, Norma Williams, disputes this. She said Johnny’s girlfriend was actually sitting on

his lap when John put the gun to his head and she put her temple against his head. The bullet went in one

side of his temple but didn’t come through. Johnny’s girlfriend claimed both of them had been doing this

on the road for sometime. During intermission, they would go back into the dressing room and each took

turns playing with the finalizer.

The once promising pop and rock’n roll future evaporated.