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Moondance

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Johnnie Ray's 1951 mugshot after being arrested outside Detroit's Brass Rail club for "sexual vagrancy". Ray, known for the number one hit "Cry", was gay.

The single "Cry" came out five months after his arrest and started a six-year string of top ten hits that saw Ray make music history by being the missing link between crooners such as Frank Sinatra and Frankie Laine and early rockers such as Elvis Presley and Little Richard thanks to his unusually high (for the times) singing voice and erratic, wild antics onstage, which included climbing atop curtains and ripping them off, kick his piano stand and do high flying moves, ripping his hair and falling on the floor while screaming, a habit later picked up by singer James Brown.

Despite his only marriage to Marilyn Morrison and a platonic affair with gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, most of Ray's personal romances and sexual flings were with other men.

Born in Dallas, Oregon on January 10, 1927, he died on February 24, 1990 from complications of liver cancer in Los Angeles. He was 63.

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