Johnny Stark, Kid From Jersey, Rock Pioneer

Johnny Stark Comes To Hollywood in 1956

by Giovanni Sticco

When Johnny Stark came to Hollywood in 1956, he wasn’t arriving to play second fiddle to anybody.

He was coming to make his own name.

Johnny was a young singer from Jersey with a powerful voice, a distinctive high range, ambition, and the determination to make it in the exploding world of rock and roll. He was already beginning to establish himself as a recording artist, and before long his career would take him into recording studios, onto major stages, onto national television, and into the offices of important record companies.

He wasn’t standing in the shadows of the stars around him.

Johnny Stark was becoming a star in his own right.

His story is especially fascinating because, while he was making his own mark, he crossed paths with musicians who would also become legends.

One of the most remarkable chapters in Johnny’s recording career involved a young Canadian musician named Gordon Lightfoot and his group, the Four Winds.

At the time, Gordon had come to Hollywood and was doing session work while trying to establish himself in the music business. Johnny’s producer, Carl Burns, was looking for musicians who could help give Johnny’s records the sound he wanted.

Gordon and the Four Winds came into the studio and worked alongside Johnny.

They weren’t simply voices somewhere off in the background. They were in the same room with Johnny, participating in the sessions and contributing vocals and handclaps to the recordings.

They worked on several of Johnny’s records, including “Rockin’ Billy,” “Drivin’ Me Out of My Mind,” “Cold Coffee,” and “Feeling Like a Fool.” Johnny remembered Gordon as a humble and talented young musician.

“You could tell right away that he was one hell of a musician,” Johnny recalled. At that point, neither man could know what the future held.

Gordon would eventually return to Canada and become one of the great singer-songwriters of his generation. But before the international success, before the famous albums and songs, there was a young Gordon Lightfoot sitting in a Hollywood recording studio with the Four Winds, making music alongside Johnny Stark.

Johnny was already pursuing his own career and making his own records.

Years later, he could look back and realize just how extraordinary that moment had been.

A future Canadian legend was helping create the sound of Johnny Stark’s rock and roll records.

Johnny’s relationship with Eddie Cochran was different.

Eddie wasn’t simply another famous name Johnny happened to encounter. They became friends.

The two young musicians were part of the same rapidly changing rock and roll world. They talked about records, shows, music, girls, and the crazy business they were both trying to make their way through.

One of the places they would meet was the Brown Derby in Hollywood.

Johnny remembered walking in one night and seeing Eddie sitting with some of the other young singers and musicians.

Eddie spotted him immediately.

“Hey, Johnny! Get over here!”

Eddie had heard Johnny’s record on the radio.

“Man, you’re out of sight. You are great, man. I love your voice, Johnny. You’re doing great.”

Johnny appreciated hearing that.

“Thanks, Eddie. Coming from you, that means a lot.”

But Eddie wasn’t just being polite.

“No, I mean it. You got something, man. Keep going.”

Johnny and Eddie became pals. They spent time together, laughed together, talked about music, and even performed together.

Johnny remembered Eddie’s personality as much as his talent.

“I remember his laugh. I remember his voice. And I remember what a good guy he was.” That says a lot about the relationship.

To the world, Eddie Cochran became one of the defining figures of early rock and roll.

To Johnny Stark, Eddie was his friend.

When Eddie died in 1960, Johnny felt the loss deeply. Eddie was far too young.

Johnny never forgot him.

While Johnny was building friendships with musicians like Eddie Cochran and working in studios with musicians such as Gordon Lightfoot and the Four Winds, his own career was moving forward.

Johnny wasn’t waiting around for somebody else’s success to carry him along. He was making his own records.

He was performing.

He was getting his music played on the radio.

He was appearing before screaming teenage audiences.

And his career was attracting serious attention from record companies.

Johnny eventually signed with Liberty Records. He remembered the moment vividly. He and Mark were called in to meet Al Bennett, and a contract was placed in front of him.

This wasn’t a promise.

It wasn’t a maybe.

It was a record contract.

Johnny signed his name.

Liberty Records planned to make an album and get him out for public appearances. Johnny walked out of that office knowing that another major door had opened.

And that was only part of what was happening.

Johnny would go on to appear on American Bandstand, standing before a national television audience and performing “Rocking Billy.”

He arrived in Philadelphia with Connie Francis and Frankie Avalon, but Johnny wasn’t there as somebody’s backup act. He had earned his own place on that stage.

As Johnny himself remembered it, American Bandstand was “the big leagues.”

The cameras rolled.

The audience screamed.

Johnny performed.

And afterward, he stood signing photograph after photograph for young fans.

That was Johnny Stark’s world.

He was making his mark.

Then there was Elvis.

Johnny came to Hollywood in 1956, when Elvis Presley was already making a major impact on American popular music. Johnny wasn’t watching Elvis from the perspective of some distant fan hoping to enter the business someday. Johnny was pursuing his own career at the same time, making records and working toward his own place in the rock and roll world.

Years later, Johnny learned that Elvis had heard about him.

According to what Johnny was told, someone had played his records for Elvis, and Elvis liked Johnny’s voice, particularly his unusually high range and the way he combined that quality with rock and roll.

Then came the remarkable part.

Johnny received invitations to meet Elvis.

More than once.

And Johnny never went.

Looking back, it was one of the opportunities he regretted most.

When you’re young, Johnny explained, you think there will always be another opportunity. He was working, traveling, and dealing with his own career. He assumed another chance would come.

It didn’t.

Johnny also found it interesting that he and Elvis shared a love for Peter Sellers and Inspector Clouseau.

Johnny sometimes imagined what might have happened if they had finally met.

Maybe they would have talked about music. Maybe they would have laughed.

Maybe they would have sat around doing terrible Inspector Clouseau impressions.

Johnny believed they might genuinely have liked each other. And that possibility stayed with him.

What makes Johnny Stark’s story unusual is that these famous names aren’t the story by themselves.

They are part of the larger picture.

Johnny wasn’t simply somebody who happened to meet Gordon Lightfoot.

He was a recording artist making his own records while Gordon and the Four Winds worked alongside him. He wasn’t simply somebody who knew Eddie Cochran.

He was Eddie’s friend, another young rock and roll singer trying to make his own mark. And he wasn’t simply somebody who dreamed about meeting Elvis Presley.

Johnny was already pursuing his own career and building his own reputation when Elvis learned about his music.

By the late 1950s, Johnny had made records, appeared on national television, performed before packed teenage audiences, toured with major acts, and signed with Liberty Records.

He had entered the big leagues on his own.

And that is an important part of Johnny Stark’s story.

Johnny Stark’s music didn’t disappear when his life ended.

Today, his music from the 1970s is being represented for synchronization licensing through Pop-Up Music UK, a London-based music publisher and sync agency whose work connects music with film, television, advertising, trailers, gaming, and other visual media.

In other words, Johnny’s music is finding another life.

The young singer who came to Hollywood chasing a dream is still being heard.

The records he made decades ago can now potentially become part of new films, television programs, advertising campaigns, and other productions.

And perhaps that’s the most fitting continuation of Johnny Stark’s story.

He entered the rock and roll business when it was young.

He made his own mark.

He crossed paths with people who became legends.

And his music is still moving forward.

I Am Johnny Stark: My Rock and Roll Memoir tells the story in Johnny’s own voice, from his beginnings in Jersey to Hollywood, the recording studios, the stages, the television appearances, the friendships, the struggles, and the extraordinary people he encountered along the way.

This is not the story of a man who stood behind the stars.

This is the story of Johnny Stark, a rock and roll singer who was making his own mark while history was being made around him.

Read His Autobiography!

 

I Am Johnny Stark

My Rock And Roll Memoir

 

The unforgettable true story of a kid from Jersey, an intimate, unfiltered rock and roll journey filled with music, Hollywood, heartbreak, danger and the brutal realities of show business.

A remarkable look at the heart of early rock and roll, the Golden Age of American entertainment. Johnny records music, hears his own voice on the radio, appears on American Bandstand, moving through a world populated by the most fascinating names of the era: Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran, Tony Bennett, Sonny Bono, Gordon Lightfoot, Ritchie Valens, and many others.

 

Buy I Am Johnny Stark