John "Ace" Cannon (born 5 May 1934 in Grenada, Mississippi) is an American tenor and alto saxophonist. He played and toured with Hi Records stablemate Bill Black's Combo, and started a solo career with his record "Tuff" in 1961, using the Black combo as his backing group. "Tuff" hit #17 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1962, and the follow-up single "Blues (Stay Away from Me)" hit #36 that same year. In April 1965, he released Ace Cannon Live (HL 12025); according to the liner notes by Nick Pesce the album was recorded in front of a live audience inside Hi's recording studio, and Pesce claims this was the first time such an album had ever been recorded (as opposed to previous live albums recorded in concert venues).
Cannon was inducted into both the Rock and Soul Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 2000. In May 2007, his hometown of Calhoun City, Mississippi, hosted its first annual Ace Cannon Festival, and on December 9, 2008, he was honored with induction into the Mississippi Musicians' Hall Of Fame.
After years of travelling and entertaining fans the world over, he moved back to Calhoun City in the late 1980s and resides there today. He still plays numerous dates each year, and can be found most days working on his golf game at his home course.
Famous quotes containing the words ace and/or cannon:
“I do not object to Gladstone’s always having the ace of trumps up his sleeve, but only to his pretence that God had put it there.”
—Henry Labouchere (1831–1912)
“We may say that feelings have two kinds of intensity. One is the intensity of the feeling itself, by which loud sounds are distinguished from faint ones, luminous colors from dark ones, highly chromatic colors from almost neutral tints, etc. The other is the intensity of consciousness that lays hold of the feeling, which makes the ticking of a watch actually heard infinitely more vivid than a cannon shot remembered to have been heard a few minutes ago.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)