John William Cummings (October 8, 1948 – September 15, 2004), better known by his stage name Johnny Ramone, was an American musician who was the guitarist and a founding member of the Ramones, a band that helped pioneer the punk movement. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Until the band's disbandment in 1996, Johnny, along with the lead vocalist Joey Ramone, were the only two original members who stayed since its inception, and appeared on every one of the band’s albums.
In 2009, Ramone appeared on Times list of "The 10 Greatest Electric-Guitar Players". He ranked No. 8 on Spins 2012 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and No. 28 on Rolling Stones similarly titled 2015 list. Alongside his music career, Ramone appeared in nearly a dozen films, in documentaries, and on television. Ramone's autobiography, Commando, was released posthumously in 2012.
Early life John William Cummings was born in Queens, New York City, on October 8, 1948, the only child of Estelle, a waitress of Polish and Ukrainian descent, and Francis William Cummings, a construction worker (a steamfitter) of Irish descent. He was raised in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, where he grew up absorbing rock music.Silverman, Stephen M. "Punk Rock Legend Johnny Ramone Dies at 55", People, September 16, 2004. Accessed June 2, 2009. "Johnny Ramone, 55, was born John Cummings and grew up in Forest Hills, N.Y., soaking up the rock in the 1960s but then moving to an edgier sound." Cummings's father was a strict disciplinarian. Johnny is quoted as saying: "My father would get on these tangents about how he never missed a day's work. I broke my big toe the day I had to go pitch a Little League game and he's going, 'What are you – a baby? What did I do, raise a baby? You go play.' And even though my toe was broken I had to go pitch the game anyway. It was terrible."
As a teenager, Cummings played in a band called the Tangerine Puppets alongside future Ramones drummer Tamás Erdélyi (better known as Tommy Ramone). Cummings was known as a "greaser", though he was later described as a tie-dye-wearing Stooges fan. He was a lifelong New York Yankees fan. Cummings also worked as a plumber with his father before the Ramones became successful. He said he attended Peekskill Military Academy in Peekskill, New York.Melnick, Monte A. and Frank Meyer, On the Road with The Ramones: Updated Edition, 2007, Bobcat Books, p.41-43
Career Ramones Cummings met future bandmate Douglas Colvin, later to become Dee Dee Ramone, in the early 1970s while delivering dry cleaning. They would eat lunch together and discuss their mutual love of bands like The Stooges and MC5. Together they went to Manny's Music in New York City in January 1974, where Johnny bought a used blue Mosrite Ventures II guitar for just over $54 (approximately ). On the same trip, Dee Dee bought a Danelectro bass. They collaborated with future bandmate Jeffrey Hyman, later to become Joey Ramone, to form the Ramones with mutual friend Richie Stern initially on bass and Dee Dee also on guitar prior to Stern’s departure due to his musical ineptitude following a handful of rehearsals. Tamás "Thomas" Erdélyi, subsequently known as Tommy Ramone, joined the Ramones in the summer of that year after public auditions failed to produce a satisfactory drummer. The members of the band each used the "Ramone" surname, and Cummings became known as Johnny Ramone.
The Ramones played before an audience for the first time on March 30, 1974, at Performance Studios. The band's debut album, Ramones, was greeted positively by rock critics. The album was not a commercial success, reaching only number 111 on the Billboard album chart. Their next two albums, Leave Home and Rocket to Russia, were released in 1977. Rocket to Russia was the band's highest-charting album to date, reaching number 49 on the Billboard 200. In 1978, the band released their fourth studio album, Road to Ruin. It failed to reach the Billboard Top 100. However, "I Wanna Be Sedated", which appeared both on the album and as a single, would become one of the band's best-known songs. The artwork on the album's cover was done by Punk magazine cofounder John Holmstrom.
After the band's movie debut in Roger Corman's Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979), producer Phil Spector became interested in the Ramones and produced their 1980 album End of the Century. There is a long-disputed rumor that during the recording sessions in Los Angeles, Spector held Johnny at gunpoint, forcing him to repeatedly play a riff.
Pleasant Dreams, the band's sixth album, was released in 1981. It continued the trend established by End of the Century, taking the band further from the raw punk sound of its early records. Johnny would contend in retrospect that this direction was a record company decision, a continued futile attempt to get airplay on American radio.
Subterranean Jungle, produced by Ritchie Cordell and Glen Kolotkin, was released in 1983. According to Trouser Press, it brought the band "back to where they once belonged: junky '60s pop adjusted for current tastes", which among other things meant "easing off the breakneck rhythm that was once Ramones dogma."
Johnny Ramone was responsible for initiating one of the major sources of animosity within the band when he began dating and later married Linda Daniele, who had previously dated Joey Ramone. Though the band remained together for years after this incident, relations between Johnny and Joey remained strained.
The Ramones performed 2,263 concerts, touring virtually nonstop for 22 years. On August 6, 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, they played a farewell concert at the Palace in Hollywood and disbanded.Schinder (2007), pp. 559–560.
Recognition of the band's importance grew over the years. The Ramones ranked number 26 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" and number 17 in VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock". In 2002, the Ramones were ranked the second-greatest band of all time by Spin, trailing only The Beatles. On March 18, 2002, the original four members and Tommy's replacement on drums, Marky Ramone, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility. In 2011, the group was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Acting Alongside his music career, Johnny Ramone appeared in nearly a dozen films (including Rock 'n' Roll High School) and documentaries. He also made television appearances in such shows as The Simpsons (1F01 "Rosebud", 1993) and Space Ghost Coast to Coast (Episode 5 "Bobcat").
In 2001, Johnny appeared in an English-language Spanish science fiction film called Stranded.
Guitar technique Being almost exclusively a rhythm guitarist, Johnny Ramone mostly used downstrokes throughout his career. He also used full, six-string barre chords and occasional power chords.Michael Molenda, "The Guitar Player Book: 40 Years Of Interviews, Gear, And Lessons From The World's Most Celebrated Guitar Magazine", p. 71 This unusual technique, combined with his characteristic tone from his guitar amp, produced a guitar sound that was far more aggressive and rhythmic than that of his contemporaries, heavily influencing early punk rock groups and later guitarists in other genres.
For example, Dictators bassist Andy Shernoff states that Jimmy Page's rapid downstroke guitar riff in "Communication Breakdown", an influential song that contained elements of protopunk, was an inspiration for Johnny Ramone's downstroke guitar style.Everett, True, Hey Ho Let's Go: The Story of The Ramones (2002): 13 Ramone, who has described Page as "probably the greatest guitarist who ever lived", stated in the documentary Ramones: The True Story that he improved his downstroke style by playing the song over and over again for the bulk of his early career. Recording engineer Ed Stasium once stated "Johnny makes it sound simple, but I can't do it, and I bet Eddie Van Halen can't. Not for an hour!". His style has also been an influence on many alternative rock bands, as well as on thrash metal performers such as James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett of Metallica, Dave Mustaine of Megadeth and Scott Ian of Anthrax. Paul Gilbert has cited Johnny Ramone as one of his influences. Hammett stated using downstrokes so prominently emphasizes the higher-end frequency of the guitar's sound, and reduces a percussive effect which happens during upstrokes. An article in Premier Guitar notes how Johnny's use of barre chords across all six strings helped create more fullness and harmonic depth, when compared to power chords using only two or three strings (though depending on hand position, he sometimes muted the top or bottom strings during some barre chords).
Johnny saw himself as a rhythm guitarist and consequently never attempted to gain much skill performing guitar solos. However, Johnny did play simple lead guitar parts on a small number of Ramones recordings, such as "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" and "California Sun". A brief guitar solo can also be found on live versions of "I Can't Make It on Time", in which Johnny plays a descending E minor pentatonic scale, ending it off with a whole step bend. However, the infrequent guitar solos on the group's studio albums were usually overdubbed by Tommy Ramone, Ed Stasium, Daniel Rey, Walter Lure and other uncredited guests.Sharby Coms, "How The West Was Lost", in Mojo Punk Special Edition, p. 94 Most of these small leads were only added in an attempt to give certain songs a more commercial appeal; they were not common on the band's albums.
Johnny initially selected a Mosrite guitar "because it was the cheapest guitar in the store" and the instrument was not considered trendy or fashionable: "I also didn’t wanna get a guitar that everybody else was using."True, 2002 Journalist Everett True later summarized Johnny's philosophy as "all [Electric] guitars sound the same when turned up loud enough", and Mosrites were his main instruments because their lightweight body and thin neck suited his playing style.True, 2002 Occasionally, he was known to use guitars by Fender, Hamer or other companies. But these guitars were often backups or for occasional studio work, and he overwhelmingly preferred Mosrite.
Politics Johnny was one of the few conservatives in the punk rock community: a staunch supporter of the Republican Party and an advocate of American Exceptionalism.
In 1985, Joey Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone and Jean Beauvoir composed the song "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" for the Ramones, which criticized President Ronald Reagan's controversial visit to a German military cemetery. The song was rush-released as a single in the UK, but the song was retitled "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down" when it appeared on the album Animal Boy (1986). Johnny later said, "They couldn't talk about my favorite president like that. So we agreed to use another title."
Johnny made his political affiliation known to the world in 2002, when the Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After thanking all who made the honor possible, he said, "God bless President Bush, and God bless America".
In a 2003 interview, Johnny reiterated, "I think Reagan was the best President in my life." He also stated that he believed that "punk is right wing", adding that "when you think of who punks are, they're greasers, people who didn't fit in, but they didn't back down either. Who above all, love America." (Interview conducted April 2, 2003, published December 2008)
Johnny was quoted by The Guardian as saying, "I figure people drift toward liberalism at a young age, and I always hope that they change when they see how the world really is."
Personal life