Soon, Memorial Album followed, initially issued as a 10-inch EP in 1955, then as a 12-inch LP in 1957. It was reissued with its present cover in 1962 (mono) and again in 1974 (stereo). Eventually issued on CD, Memorial Album is literally the only Johnny Ace album ever issued anywhere. While his legacy begs for a deluxe, remastered CD of his complete recordings, Johnny Ace's Memorial Album contains much of what the singer ever waxed, and it's well worth the low price. His reputation as a balladeer belies the fact that when he cut loose ("How Can You Be So Mean"), boy howdy, he could rock. Johnny Ace's story is one of the most tragic tales in the annals of early rock 'n' roll, and one can only hope that our continued fascination with him will bring more sparkle to his star and more recordings to the market.

Postscript. Almost on cue after my 2004 update of this page, Hip-O Records immediately produced a "deluxe, remastered" version of Memorial Album. However, the disc was issued as a limited edition of 5000 available only through their Hip-O Select website. Beautifully packaged and pristinely mastered, this edition of Memorial Album (subtitled "The Complete Duke Recordings") swelled to 20 songs, but did not include the elusive Sun or Flair masters. Nevertheless, highly recommended - get it while (or if) you can!

Then, another compilation - The Chronological Johnny Ace: 1951-1954 (2005) - hit the market containing one of the Sun tracks ("I Cried") and the Flair side ("Midnight Hours Journey"). Much later, Ace's Wild: The Complete Solo Sides And Sessions (2012) added about 30 tracks on which Johnny Ace served as a pianist, including songs by B.B. King and Bobby "Blue" Bland. Cool, but I strongly suspect that these discs crawled out of the "gray market" created by Europe's looser copyright laws. Over there, sound recording copyrights expire after 50 years. So, Chronological Johnny Ace and Ace's Wild could conceivably be created not from the original masters but from the Hip-O CD and other second-hand sources. I can't be sure (readers?), but caveat emptor. [top of page]