John Cummings and Christopher Ward share a birthday: October 8. They were both born in New York CIty; Cummings in 1948 and Ward in 1965. And they have something else in common: their name. That’s because John Cummings and Christopher Ward are better known as Johnny and C.J. Ramone, of the punk band the Ramones.
The Ramones (note that “the” is not part of the band’s name) were formed in 1974 and helped establish the punk movement, at least in the US. The band was never highly successful commercially, but that was consistent with the punk idea. Every band member used the surname Ramone as an alias. There was never a member actually named Ramone; the name came from the alias (Paul Ramone) used by Paul McCartney to check into hotels anonymously. The band stayed together (not with the same members the whole time) for 22 years, and played over 2,000 concerts.
Johnny Ramone (John Cummings) was one of the original members of the Ramones, along with Joey Ramone (Jeffrey Hyman), Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Colvin), and Tommy Ramone (Tamás Erdélyi). C.J. Ramone (Christopher Ward) joined the band in 1989, replacing Dee Dee Ramone.
John Cummings joined his first band, the Tangerine Puppets, when he was a teenager, where he met Tamás Erdélyi. He didn’t originally plan a career in music; he became a plumber alongside his father, and held a number of other jobs including delivery driver for a dry cleaning company. He was working at the delivery job in the early 1970s when he met Douglas Colvin. The two became friends and in 1974 went together to a music shop where Cummings bought an electric guitar and Colvin bought an electric bass. With another acquaintance, Jeffrey Hyman, they formed the Ramones that summer. Another acquaintance, Richard Stern, wanted to be in the band to play bass, but when the others found out he couldn’t play at all, he was invited to leave. They were unable to find a drummer they were satisfied with until Cummings contacted his old bandmate Erdélyi. All four adopted their Ramone stage names, and they played their first show on March 30, 1974.
The band kept playing, and released their first record in 1976. It didn’t sell in great numbers, but was well reviewed by critics. The next year they released two more records, and a fourth in 1978. Then in 1979 the band appeared in the movie Rock ’n’ Roll High School, and Phil Spector, a famous record producer, stepped in to produce their 1980 album. Spector was a highly influential producer who had some controversial and violent episodes in his personal life. He ended up in prison, convicted for murder. Ever since he produced the Ramones album, there has been a rumor, never proven one way or another, that during the recording, Spector pulled a gun on John Cummings to force him to play a guitar part repeatedly.
Christopher Ward grew up in New York, like Cummings, and joined the US Marines after high school. He was discharged, though, after going absent without leave. He was a fan of the Ramones, and had played bass in several bands prior to joining the military. He auditioned to join the band in July, 1989 and said later that during the audition he was very relaxed because he never expected to be hired; he had just wanted a chance to play once with his favorite band. To his surprise he got the job, had to learn 40 new songs and a different bass-playing technique in about five weeks, and played his first show as C.J. Ramone in September of the same year.
Ward was the youngest member of the Ramones and stayed with the band until they disbanded in 1996. All of the original members have passed away, but Ward celebrates his 59th birthday today, and is still active as a musician, still performing as C.J. Ramone. The Ramones band was rated by Spin magazine as the second-greatest of all time, only after the Beatles. They’ve been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and are on the lists of 100 greatest artists by both Rolling Stone magazine and the VH1 television series 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. The band received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2011.
