Millions of people have been fascinated with Elvis, Frank and Johnny for decade after decade. And although they are all dead, they live on through their music, children, and various works of art. I am one of the fascinated millions and it has taken me a long time to figure out why. All three men are not stars of my generation and I certainly don’t have a groupie complex where I am hung up on any particular famous person. So what was it about these stars that has held my interest? They all made (arguably) great music in three different musical genres and you can hum or sing along with almost all of it. They each lived a bit of a crazy life and were known for their kindness and their ability to snap quickly. They each made their mark yet one stands out to me; my favorite is Johnny.

About a year ago I read three books on Johnny, all around the same time. I have read a fair amount about Elvis and Frank, seen the documentaries and listened to most of the music. But for some reason Johnny stood out as the coolest cat of the bunch. There was something about him that held my interest. He was a wild man yet a serious Christian, a philanderer and a devoted husband, an addict but a sobriety advocate, a rich man who could be dead broke… and the list goes on. He was, quite literally, a walking contradiction. But the story does not end there. To call him a hypocrite would be foolish and naive. To insult the way he lived his life would be fine… but it would also make known the lack of understanding of human nature.

The story is the most interesting because his contemporaries were more of one extreme or the other. One of his contemporaries couldn’t stand being in his own skin (Elvis) and therefore died by the time he approached middle age because he used drugs to try to escape from himself. The other one easily married and divorced, with no problem telling everyone around him what they could do if they didn’t agree with his thinking. He lived the fun life and lived it into his eighties without blinking twice or having regrets as to the way he had done things. He was known for doing everything, “My Way.” Not Johnny. He was both.

He struggled with the forces of good and evil. He stuggled between saint and sinner, between tortured and loved. From everything written and spoken about Johnny, it seems he was a man who uttered the “never surrender” lines of Corey Hart, long before Hart was even born. He was, in the truest sense, the Everyman who each of us can identify with when we are honest with ourselves.

So that is why I like Johnny - he struggled. He stuggled and he admitted that he struggled. And as my friend Scott Lester would say, “He rode his bike on the bumpy and rocky path, not the smoothe one that was all downhill.” While we might all say that we would love the downhill ride, it very rarely works out that way. The King and Ole Blue Eyes are fine with me, but need an honest celebrity to call your own? I’m going with the Man in Black. He fought the “good fight” like the rest of us try to. God rest your soul, Johnny….