NEW YORK (www.ramonesmania.com) - GUITAR LEGEND JOHNNY RAMONE DIES AT 55 after a 5 year battle with cancer.
A great loss in music.
As was reported by the website Ramonesmania.com two months ago and by the press after a leak by bandmate "Marky Ramone" (Marc Bell), the end was all too near for Johnny Ramone. John Cummings a.k.a Johnny Ramone died September 15, 2004 (3:03PM) in his sleep at his home in California surrounded by his closest friends and family.
Survived by his loving wife Linda, and mother Estelle, John Cummings a.k.a. "Johnny Ramone", lived a life that was as fast and just as fierce as his playing.
He blazed a musical trail with fellow original bandmates (da'bruddas) Dee Dee Ramone, Joey Ramone and Tommy Ramone, in the 1970's that had turned rock n'roll on it's head and still resonates strongly in today's rock scene.
The style was pure chainsaw and Johnny Ramone was the master of ceremonies behind the axe. It was a battle cry in 1977 heard by kids all over to rise up and do the cretin hop. Punk was born and the Ramones were giving out the cigars.
Pulsating to the backbeat with the Ramones became a mantra for many disaffected kids worldwide. With the Ramones, there were never phony musical preservatives or cheap additives. This became the signature of the band, combined with the unique sound which was never heard before, but know imitated by most contemporary punk bands thirty years later.
Even Bruce Springsteen was moved. After seeing the Ramones in Asbury Park, N.J., Springsteen wrote "Hungry Heart" for the band. His manager, however, swayed him to keep the song for himself and it became a hit single.
"The Ramones had it rough," said Arturo Vega, who's worked with the band for 30 years. "The band almost had to be protected from people who were taking advantage of them. There was never any money made."
Johnny Ramone changed that by demanding more money for performances, but still kept a close watch on the band's budget; Vega recalled how Johnny Ramone would insist that the band drive nonstop between Boston and New York for shows instead of spending the night in a hotel.
In addition to his financial conservatism, the guitarist was politically conservative and the late Ronald Reagan was Ramone's favorite president, Vega said.
Twenty-seven years after they started, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame called the Ramones to the head of the class. The band welcomed their inductions into the Rock Hall of Fame and told the music industry "we accept you one of us".
Sadly Joey Ramone was not alive to witness the adulation bestowed on the Ramones in these later years having succomed to cancer himself in 2001. Tragically, Dee Dee Ramone, the "heart of the band" died shortly after the hall induction from a drug overdose. Shakespeare could not have wrote a more tragic ending for a band that fought so hard for recognition for so long. Today, there are countless "TOP 100 ROCK BAND" lists that rank the RAMONES at the top, movies are coming out left and right, and the books are too many to count. Joey Ramone once sang "hey, hey, hey, why is it always this way".
Unique sound - Punk Rock.
Johnny Ramone will forever be remembered as a chief architect of the sound and of the movement that brought us "Punk Rock".
He's the guy who furiously blasted the guitar like a buzzsaw in an effort to almost break it, while playing for you...literally non-stop...for an hour and twenty minutes to music about sniffing glue, monsters in the basement and a dysfunctional family life in Queens New York.
He did this nightly. Over 200 shows a year.
We thought his hand might fly off one day. What Pete Townsend started, Johnny Ramone finished...and now owns.
R.I.P. Johnny - HAIL JOHNNY RAMONE!
Gabba Gabba Hey
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