Talk:Johnnie Ray

Article changes

I added several footnotes. I put back in the detail about Johnnie Ray never appearing on "The Love Boat." Europeans might not know this, but if you were an aging cocktail singer in the late 1970s, you had to appear on "The Love Boat" or else your career tanked. Johnnie Ray did not go on the show, and his career tanked. His career had been almost non - existent in his native United States since the early 1960s. A Love Boat episode could have helped revive it. But that was not to be.

The facts about the 1957 criminal libel trial that ruined "Confidential" magazine come from the 1996 memoir of Ms. Theo Wilson, who was one of the most respected trial reporters of the 1950s. When the judge ordered the editors and publishers of all the scandal magazines (including Hush-Hush and Whisper) to put an end to the smut, they did. Millions of people had been reading the magazines for less than five years, which means the smut, including the dirt on Johnnie Ray, was fresh enough in their minds for them to doubt what they had read. This is relevant to Johnnie Ray's changing relationship with the American media. The point is not what he did in the bedroom, but rather who paid attention to that and whether it mattered very much. We don't know that it did. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dooyar (talk • contribs) 04:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Article quality

I have recently added the {{Wiki}} and {{POV}} tags to this article. The unresourced fancruft currently within is best exemplified by the following paragraph.

"After the loquacious Rushmore shot his wife and then himself to death in early 1958, more open-minded Americans of the time realized that Ray had been smeared deliberately. By that time, however, the rapid rise of rock 'n' roll and his failed 1958 ear surgery had cut him off from the songwriters who were so vital to less rhythmic singers like himself, Tony Bennett and Johnny Mathis, who penned little of their own material. When rock 'n' roll proved in the 1960s that it was here to stay, and not a fad for screaming adolescents, Bennett and Mathis continued to score hits penned by songwriters, but Ray recorded rock-oriented material that often seemed wrong for him. His relationship with his last American record label ended in 1961. Ray disappeared from the American television networks until a Hollywood Palace appearance in 1968, by which time serious music fans liked the fact that rock 'n' roll bands wrote nearly all of their own material with the members collaborating."

To be fair, parts of the present article are good (and resourced) - but some are extremely non-encyclopedic. Can someone improve the situation ? "Dear old Johnnie Ray", indeed.

Derek R Bullamore (talk) 22:20, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with you about the above paragraph being "fancruft." I say there is nothing wrong with it. It places Johnnie Ray's downfall in the context of its time. Nyannrunning (talk) 00:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Editwarring over Love Boat

I'd suggest you start discussing whether the Love Boat thing is notable here on the talk page rather than reverting each other. If the edit war keeps up, I'll put a notice on the page protection request board and have an admin take a look. Thanks. Katr67 (talk) 00:03, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

People in Australia claim to keep the flame of Johnnie Ray. They did in the 1980s when he was alive. That's fine. They may have seen The Love Boat, but they don't know how vital it was for an easy - listening singer of the late 1970s and early 1980s to appear on the show. If you weren't rock 'n' roll and you didn't do "Love Boat," then your career was low - profile in the United States of that era. Australians didn't care if you were on "Love Boat" when they remained loyal to an aging performer. But the article needs to focus on Johnnie Ray in the United States. He was American.

It is relevant that at least three musical - comedy performers with whom Johnnie Ray had worked in the 1950s did go on "Love Boat": Ethel Merman, Donald O'Connor and Janis Paige. The article should contain just two sentences about this crucial American TV program and those three performers. Is it too much to ask for the two sentences to stay in the article ? It's not a very long article. They are just as relevant as Ray's sex life. The reason Americans didn't know him during the disco / heavy metal era had nothing to do with homophobia. The reason is he never appeared on American network TV. It's that simple. Johnnie himself said for publication in the 1980s, "If you don't appear on a cable TV channel every twenty minutes, then people in Los Angeles think you're retired or dead."

As for sources, the article has plenty of them. Nothing is fancruft. The fact that Johnnie's 1960s downfall had to do with American songwriters is sourced. Nyannrunning (talk) 00:25, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, this is the section being discussed:

Several musical-comedy performers with whom Ray had worked in film and in the legitimate theater in the 1950s found work on The Love Boat starting in the late 1970s. They included Ethel Merman, Donald O'Connor and Janis Paige. Johnnie Ray never appeared on this long-running American television show, although Australian promoters flew him to their country to perform every year until 1989.

Reading just the article, the importance of Love Boat is not explained. The explanation is all off the article page. In edit summaries and on talk pages, you mention that any performer of Ray's era, who didn't appear on the show, was lowkey. That may be true, (and it may also be untrue), but it also sounds like a personal opinion and it could even be original research. If it could be put into some kind of context in the article so that the significance is immediately clear, it would be different. It would need to have a source provided so that it reads as more than personal opinion, but if a rock/music/entertainment historian for example, could be quoted, that would be one way of clarifying the point. "If you don't appear on a cable TV channel every twenty minutes, then people in Los Angeles think you're retired or dead." - is a great quote. If you can source it, it would be a really good addition to the article. Regardless of your comments regarding grammar, linking the Love Boat comments to "although Australian promoters....." suggests there is a link between the two. Let's not be too pedantic over the finer rules of grammar. The article should be easy and clear to read. The point is that when people read a sentence they form a particular impression as to what message is intended. If the link is "tenuous" as you say on your talk page, it actually reads as more than tenuous, the way it's written. It could reworded to make it clear that the two issues are not linked. eg "Although Ray's career opportunities in the US were limited during the 1970s and 1980s, he remained a popular performer in Australia, where he performed every year until 1989." I disagree that Ray should be written about mainly from an American perspective. Your comments suggest a kind of American "ownership" of Johnnie Ray and some kind of indignation that "ownership" is being claimed by other countries. Forgive me if I misunderstand you, but that's the impression I get. I believe that because he achieved different levels of success thoughout the world at different times, he should be written about from a world perspective, and certainly in this venue, which is an English language article that can be read by anyone in the world, it's important that a reader in the United Kingdom or Australia also gets information relevant to them. But you are right - the article should address the disparities and make it clear in things like discographies which songs were successful in which market. I completely agree with you on that point. Although I'm not a fan of tables, perhaps a table format would more clearly indicate where the song was and was not a hit. Rossrs (talk) 02:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Original research

While doing a reference check, I removed the following lines:

Hospitalized at [[Cedars-Sinai Medical Center]] for three weeks until he died there, his failing health was ignored by all media outlets, American and overseas, until he entered an irreversible coma two days before the end. At that point, CNN [[Headline News]] announced his condition hourly.<ref>I watched CNN Headline News that weekend. The network has transcripts.</ref> Newspaper editors prominently displayed his obituary.

Most of that information isn't needed. There is absolutely no way to determine that every media outlet ignored the condition of his health. Saying that major media outlets ignored it would be fine if it was sourced. Also, stating that a channel has the transcripts of the show and a person remembered watching it is not a reference, that is original research. If the transcripts can be found online, please provide it, otherwise, that reference is not even close to being acceptable. Pinkadelica (talk) 18:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, the media's overlooking Ray's failing health in 1990 is original research. But the insanity of Howard Rushmore isn't. He originated the rumor that Ray was gay. All of this is sourced. Dooyar (talk) 15:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Editors do not own articles. When you roll back an article over several intermediate edits, 7 in this case, with the flimsy edit summary addressing only one small point in the intervening edits, is unacceptable and is not something new that you've just started doing. If you want to add back some of this material, it will need better citations than what most of it has. Meanwhile, some of it is not relevant to this particle article. I'd be glad to open a dispute resolution over this article. Meanwhile, add things systematically and desist from rolling back articles on a blanket basis. You ignore other changes on the page when you do this, and with no justification. Others have the right to make edits on articles and no one is obliged to retain the last version you approve. Wildhartlivie (talk) 16:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Dooyar, I didn't question that content. However, calling someone a "psychopathic murderer" on an edit summary and "insane" on the talk page reeks of bias. Personal feelings about a subject, negative or positive, should be put aside when writing in the context of an encyclopedia. If that's not possible, I suggest you not work on this subject. I didn't make the majority of edits on this page, I merely did a reference check, but a lot of what was reverted and changed wasn't necessary. Everyone is suppose to assume good faith when new content is added and unless a page is seriously vandalized, it is not to be reverted over several edits. Removing maintenance tags without providing proper citations is a violation of Wikipedia policy. If content is added, it needs to be sourced right then and there. If the sources are not at your disposal, hold off on adding the content because, inevitably, it will be removed by someone because unsourced content is subject to removal at anytime by anyone. If the massive reverts and addition of unsourced content continues, a dispute will be opened. Pinkadelica (talk) 17:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I never called Johnnie Ray a "psychopathic murderer" or "insane." I called Howard Rushmore that. It's true. A taxicab driver witnessed Rushmore murder his estranged wife. A newspaper photograph of Rushmore slumped over his dead wife inside the cab has been reprinted in a recent book by Sam Kashner. Here is an image of it on the 1958 New York Daily News cover.

Howard Rushmore the murderer.

Sources are also available for the fact that Rushmore had stalked his estranged wife for several weeks. And that he stalked celebrities and made up stories about them using violent prostitutes as "sources." He testified under oath that his tabloid articles on Johnnie Ray were part of the fiction. That is why Howard Rushmore's insanity is relevant to this article. It is only part of a sentence, which takes up very little space. I hope you are male because any woman who can't see through a wife beater / killer is asking for trouble. Dooyar (talk) 04:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Reverted edits

I am just briefly going to go over material that was removed from the article, on which Dooyar did a massive reversion, with no consideration of what the edits did.

1. There is no need for an "Overview" section. The lead paragraphs are to be short and concise. No matter, it was returned.
2. A discussion of wha Confidential and other magazines alleged was included in the lead with no direct citation whatsoever, and employed the use of the word "probably," as did material about his ear operation, in regard to his declining career. Also, connecting hearing problems to his connection to songwriters is also unsupported. Both are speculative and do not belong in a Wikipedia article.
3. There is no need for an involved explanation of an injury that damaged his hearing. It lends undue weight to the explanation, the setting for the event is sufficient.
4. A number of citations needed tags were removed with no addition of sourcing.
5. Formatting of existing citations into approved format was undone.
6. References to "explanations given by the couple" being similar to ones by columnists were vague and had no reference for them.
7. Reading the cited work re: a trial had no context for Johnnie Ray. Because a chapter was devoted to the trial does not make it germane to this article. It is extraneous to this article.
8. Referring to a person mentioned in an article as a psychopathic murderer is inappropriate and out of context for this article, and other parts of this article lead one to conclude that more than Howard Rushmore was involved in talk regarding Ray's sexuality.
9. Comments analyzing Rushmore's demise are out of context for this article and imply original research when mentioning his intentions toward Ray.
10. Additionally, material that reads "Ray recorded rock-oriented material that often seemed wrong for him" and "serious music fans liked the fact that rock 'n' roll bands wrote nearly all of their own material with the members collaborating" is a personal opinion (POV) and not objective factually based material.
11. Supposition regarding what Dorothy Kilgallen would or would not have done for Ray's career is simply supposition. It has no place in this article, nor does the Bobby Short material.
12. There is no foundation for mentioning what a performer did not appear in.

Finally, the massive rollback also removes formatting of songs into columns and proper headings for it.

If Dooyar wants to better support some of this material, bring it up on this page. If this type of rollback occurs again, we will request a dispute resolution for this article. Wildhartlivie (talk) 16:53, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The word "probably" is the only way to go because nobody knows for sure why Johnnie Ray's career declined in his home country. Your version of the article has just as much POV as the others because you included the allegation that Ray was gay. You can't prove that. You included the allegation that Ray's alleged gayness was the reason his career declined in the United States. That's POV. You made "Personal life and scandals" a chapter heading. You don't cite a source for Johnnie Ray ever having a scandal. If you bothered to read the sourced material that was in the version you vandalized, you would know that the only provable scandal centered around Howard Rushmore, not Johnnie Ray. Rushmore committed murder. Go ahead and request dispute resolution. The article was untouched for two months until you vandalized it at your convenience. Dooyar (talk) 17:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Your accusation of vandalism is completely out of line. Your assertion that in the last edit summary that the article had not been touched for 2 months is simply a lie. The word "probably" does not belong in a Wikipedia article. Quit twisting things. Another article that was locked was done so at the request of another editor and myself for the very reasons you are starting now. I added no material to this article to call POV. In fact, I removed original research of yours. Again. We will institute a dispute resolution. That is a request that the article be locked, not as punishment, but protection. Another accusation that I am vandalizing will be taken as a personal attack and steps taken to stop it.

I would have to say that since this article is under the Category:LGBT musicians from the United States category that any comment you have to make regarding that is off-base. However, the edits I made did not assert that his career decline was due to homosexuality. I don't cite a source for a scandal involving Ray because I am not aware of one. However, bringing Confidential magazine into the article, and comments regarding "bitter confessions" by Howard Rushmore does bring scandal allegations into it. It doesn't belong, nor do the other abstract references you've included. It doesn't much matter what Howard Rushmore did, his name doesn't belong in this article. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

RfP & dispute resolution requests

A request for full page protection and dispute resolution have been initiated regarding this article. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)