Star Facts
  • Category Recording

    Address 6201 Hollywood Blvd.

    Ceremony date 02/08/1960

About
Johnnie Ray
Born:
1927-01-10,
Hopewell,
Oregon,
USA
Education:
NA
Ethnicity:
Caucasian
Death Date:
-0001-11-30
Addition Websites

Johnnie Ray

John Alvin Ray was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor of what would become rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music and his animated stage persona.

Ray was born in Hopewell, Oregon, spending part of his childhood on a farm, eventually moving to Portland, Oregon. Ray was of Native American origin; his great-grandmother was a full-blooded Native American and his great-grandfather was Oregon pioneer George Kirby Gay of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England. He became deaf in his right ear at age 13 after an accident during a Boy Scout event.

It was his participation in the “blanket toss,” a sort of variation of the trampoline,

that traumatized the youngster’s inner ear. Ray later performed wearing a hearing aid. Surgery performed in New York in 1958 left him almost completely deaf in both ears, although hearing aids helped his condition.

amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0";amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true";amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "hwof05-20";amzn_assoc_search_bar_position = "bottom";amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search";amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart";amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon";amzn_assoc_region = "US";amzn_assoc_title = "Shop Johnnie Ray";amzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = "Johnnie Ray";amzn_assoc_default_category = "All";amzn_assoc_linkid = "e60485043f73031298840e43b2217450";