The Revelation of Johnnie Ray
In 1951, his song “Cry” changed the world
Published in
12 min readJun 27, 2020
In late 1951, the song “Cry” appeared on the pop charts, and a strangely emotional young man became a superstar. Teenagers rushed to get it, as critics rushed to hate it. “They scream that he ‘can’t sing.’ Yet he is a sensation, and his platter of ‘Cry’ has sold 2,000,000,” a journalist notes in early 1952. His fans weren’t just girls. Bob Dylan recalls he was “the first singer whose voice and style I totally fell in love with.”
