https://www.post-gazette.com/news/obituaries/2022/04/05/fred-johnson-obituary-blue-moon-marcels/stories/202204050098
Obituary: Bass man Fred Johnson, 80, put the 'bomp' in The Marcels No. 1 hit
SCOTT MERVIS
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
smervis@post-gazette.com
APR 5, 2022 3:37 PM

It went something like “Bomp ba ba bomp, ba bomp ba bomp bomp, baba bomp baba bomp, da dang da dang dang, da ding and dong ding.”

Singer Fred Johnson put that electrifying bass intro on The Marcels’ “Blue Moon” and bumped Elvis Presley off the top of the charts. The song, a cover of a 1934 ballad by Rodgers and Hart, was the first No. 1 rock ’n’ roll hit from Pittsburgh and it went on to be a classic, named by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 500 songs that shaped rock ’n’ roll.

Mr. Johnson, who bomped through that intro well into his golden years, died Friday. He was 80.

Mr. Johnson was a student at Oliver High School on the North Side when he co-founded The Marcels with four friends in 1959, taking the group name from a popular hairstyle called “the marcel wave.” A demo tape earned them a February 1961 session for the Colpix label at RCA Studios in New York, where they recorded “Blue Moon” in two takes.

The song, sporting a lead vocal by Cornelius Harp, was rushed to Murray the K, the famed New York City DJ, who spun it more than a dozen times in one program. In April, “Blue Moon” knocked Elvis Presley’s “Surrender” off the top of the charts and stayed there for weeks, eventually replaced by Del Shannon’s “Runaway.” It also went to No. 1 in England and Top 10 in France, Holland, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Australia and other countries.

“Bass singers had been in early rock ’n’ roll since the beginning,” said Henry DeLuca, creator of the Roots of Rock and Roll concert series. “All the groups had a bass singer, who would do an occasional lead and put an occasional riff in there, like a ‘Yeaaahh.’ But never to my knowledge did any song ever open with a bass singer doing the kind of run that Freddie did.”

That run was celebrated in the Barry Mann novelty hit “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)” that went Top 10 in the summer of 1961. Two years later, it was also acknowledged in the Johnny Cymbal hit “Mr. Bass Man.”

With the success of “Blue Moon,” The Marcels hit the road to tour the country on multiple-group bus tours in the summer of 1961. Due to the intolerance for interracial groups in the South, that August they were forced to replace white members Richard Knauss and Gene Bricker with Allen Johnson (Fred’s brother) and Walt Maddox, making them an all-black group.

“I had a barbershop on the North Side,” Mr. Maddox recallled, “and used to do his hair, back when everyone wanted it dyed, fried and combed to the side. Fred was going back and forth with that contract for Colpix. When he called me and said, ‘How’d you iike to be in the Marcels?’ I said, ‘You gotta be kidding!’ I came three months after ‘Blue Moon,’ but got to enjoy it. We went halfway around the world with each other.”

In December 1961, The Marcels appeared with with Dion and Chubby Checker in the film “Twist Around the Clock,” singing “Blue Moon” and “Merry Twistmas.”

The new group’s first studio session, in September 1961, produced a remake of the 1931 Guy Lombardo hit “Heartaches,” which went to No. 7. It was the second and last Top 10 hit for The Marcels.

Mr. Johnson continued to perform with the group through the ‘70s and ‘80s, surviving various changes in membership. In 1999, he reunited with Harp, Ron Mundy and Knauss for the PBS special “Doo Wop 50” and, long after that, continued to thrill oldies crowds at the Roots of Rock and Roll shows.

“Fred Johnson, the original ‘Mr. Blue Moon Bassman’ was the most imitated bass singer of all time,” Mr. Maddox wrote in a Facebook post. “Your sound and your songs will always live on.”

Mr. Johnson is survived by sister Helen Owens, sons and daughters Frederick Johnson Jr., Nicole M.Callaway, Veronica L. Johnson, William Johnson, David Johnson, Allen Johnson and Maria Harbison, numerous grandchildren and one great grandchild.

The viewing is Friday, April 8, from 4 to 8 p.m. at the House of Law funeral home, 9406 Frankstown Ave., Penn Hills, PA 15235. They will celebrate his life and legacy on Saturday, April 9 at 10 a.m. at the House of Law funeral home.

First Published April 5, 2022, 3:37pm

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