Humility at the Hip

Americans have learned to accept, if not quite to understand, the strange delirium that takes place when a frail-looking crooner confronts a crowd of bobby-soxers. But to an English critic, the phenomenon still takes getting used to. Drama Critic J. B. Boothroyd covered the performance of U.S. Crooner Johnnie ("Cry") Ray at London's famed old Hippodrome and wrote the following clinical report im Punch:

"You folks," says Mr. Ray in a voice scraped raw with song, "are more generous to me than I deserve." The house shrieks indignantly, because this is practically abdication; but finding that its idol is only introducing his tribute to the band ("not only very wunnerful musicians but each one my very dear friend"), it roars obedient acclaim, and the band rise to their feet with the sulky air of men who know that they are only another man's gimmick. For Mr. Ray's gimmick is to affect a touching humility before the gifts divinely bestowed on him.

This is no easy trick for an extrovert-plus, but he performs it creditably. As he sings, his large bony fingers grope for confidence among the spotlight's motes, or nervously smooth the pockets of his costly dinner-suit; his gangling frame folds into the diffident attitudes of a lady companion anxious to please an exacting employer: in approaching a high note he is the schoolboy cricketer praying to hold a vital catch.

As the evening wears on he gathers a little selfesteem; his gestures open out; he falls on a knee and thumps the stage; his hairdo collapses; he begins to get his teeth almost literally into his material, worrying the lyrics like a terrier with an old boot, biting off the sugary phrases as if they were sticks of seaside rock. In an atmosphere of rising hysteria, the screams mount, the band blasts. Those who would like to leave dare not, for fear of lynching.

His secret is dark, powerful and obscure. He lays claim, by implication chiefly, to some sense of soul ("Wanna walk an' talk with my Lord," he bawls, tousled and sweating), and perhaps to his particular audience his shallows of the spirit seem like deeps. On the other hand, the screamers and shriekers and long, ecstatic moaners, as he drags out tormentedly "a favourite of my Morn and Dad's," are clearly getting a separate satisfaction out of their own behaviour. In fact so much of the performance is contributed from the auditorium that it is as hard to assess its merits as it is to explain its success. On the last score, the ostentatiously worn deaf aid should not perhaps be overlooked. It hints at a frailty bravely overcome, and stirs all kinds of half-realized compassions, particularly in those who forget that deaf aids can be had in much less conspicuous forms nowadays.

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