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ARLINGTON -- Johnnie Ray High's last matinee at the Arlington Music Hall on Saturday was first-class.
It slowed downtown traffic, packed virtually every one of the former movie theater's 1,200 seats, and had people parking three blocks away for a sentimental goodbye to a man who always knew how to draw a crowd.Friends, fans and family braved a bitterly cold day to say farewell to the country music showman at the place he loved the best: Johnnie High's Country Music Revue.High, of Bedford, died Wednesday of heart disease.In accordance with his wishes, High's memorial service took place onstage."Lately I'd tell him that he didn't have to come to the show if he didn't feel like it," his daughter Luanne Dorman said in her eulogy. "He'd just say that this was where he was in his element."And it was.High spent 35 years honing the performing talents of guys with day jobs and teenage girls alike, and his weekly showcases rivaled similar productions in Nashville and in Branson, Mo., that were done with much bigger bankrolls. His family and cast members say the show will go on."I think Johnnie's mad up in heaven," David Guinn told officiant Bill Brooks on Friday. "It's going to be a sellout crowd and he's not going to get to be emcee," Brooks said.Flowers flanked the front of the stage, and a spotlight shined on the open casket while mourners filed in.The familiar red and blue Johnnie High's Country Music Revue lights twinkled over the sparkly backdrop curtain.Though deeply religious in tone and content, there were no denominational touches to the sentimental service, just two hours of heartfelt eulogies and country gospel music.The crowd included mostly North Texans who had been onstage with High and in the seats of the show for years. Longtime regulars brought their adult children and grandchildren.Young people who are current cast members choked back tears and sang inspirational ballads."He ensured that every performer had a positive influence on this stage," said Marvin Blum, High's neighbor and father of former cast member Elizabeth Blum.After the service, longtime fans of the Revue and cast members greeted one another with tender hugs in the lobby and exchanged comforting words with High's wife, Wanda, granddaughter Ashley Smith, and Dorman.A few of High's protégés who went on to stardom in Nashville were among the mourners."I was in the recording studio," said Joey Floyd, who had just arrived from Tennessee to sing a duet of One Day at a Time with his sister Jill Muzyka during the service. Floyd is also a touring member of Toby Keith's band."But there's nothing I can't put on hold for Johnnie High."LeAnn Rimes, perhaps High's biggest success story, was not present, but her recording of Amazing Grace had opened the service and mom Belinda Miller said Rimes had called the High family.Rimes is touring in Pennsylvania and recording an album.Steve Holy, a Nashville recording artist who lives in Dallas, began his career on the High show during the early 1990s at the same time as Rimes. He served as a pallbearer Saturday.People knew how bad High's health was, Holy said, but he kept up his good humor until the end."I saw Johnnie on Sunday night at Harris [hospital] when I came in from Nashville," Holy said after the service."I looked in and he said, 'Come over here, Steve-O.'"The tribute ended exactly the way High would have wanted: About 200 people who had sung on the Revue at some point in their lives left their seats in the audience and came onstage for a massive, hand-clapping sing-along of I'll Fly Away.They ranged from country crooners in boots and hats, to gray-haired seniors, to one little girl in a velvet dress.It was a "goose-bump moment," said a man in the crowd, adding that High always was one for a big finish.SHIRLEY JINKINS, 817-390-7657
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