It's THE GREATEST VOCAL PERFORMANCE in Rock HISTORY & There's NOT a Close Second!--Professor of Rock

Coming up… I said I was done, but then I got overwhelming feedback to keep going, so let’s take it one by one. Today, we unravel the story of a classic sing-along #1 hit — “Big Bad John” by Jimmy Dean — whose creator quit music to make sausages… and made a fortune from it. Then there’s the song that was reconstructed from an African hunting call — “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens — that became an all-time classic, but its original creator died young without making a dime. Fifty years later, his family and country sued Disney and finally got what they rightly deserved. And then there was the legend who wrote a scathing singalong classic ripping a two-timing, cheating girlfriend — “Runaround Sue” by Dion — that hit #1, and in the ultimate twist, the legend married this girl. Plus, the ultimate ‘kiss-off tune’ — “Hit the Road Jack” by Ray Charles — sung by a genius and written by his best friend, who was pronounced dead after a severe car crash and miraculously came back to life. And finally, our #1 song has the most haunting climactic vocal in rock history — “Crying” by Roy Orbison. We’re gonna have a blast with our countdown of the Top 10 Songs of 1961, NEXT on Professor of Rock!

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Executive Producer
Brandon Fugal

Honorary Producers
Kelly Moan, Curtis Stoddard, Paul Duenas, Robert Hickerty, rondell m

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#classicrock #60smusic #vinylstory #onehitwonder

Hey music junkies, Professor of Rock, always here to celebrate the greatest artists and the greatest songs of all time. If the first live-action Spiderman you saw was on The Electric Company, you’ll dig this channel of deep musical nostalgia. Subscribe below right now. I promise that you are going to love this channel. Also, check out our Podcast on Apple and Spotify. Ok, so let me catch you up… We’ve done these yearly countdowns for almost a year now, where we count down the greatest songs of the rock era year by year. We’ve done every year from 1962 to 1993, and after our latest one for 1993, I decided that, due to comments, feedback, and declining viewership as we got further into the 90s that we would stop at 1993, but I already had 1960 and 1961 ready to go.

So when I announced that we’d stop at 93, I got over a thousand comments to keep going into 94 and 95 and to finish the 60s and maybe even do the late 1950s. So I put up a poll and the people have spoken, so I’m cautiously moving forward with a few more, and we’ll see how it goes… I’m still planning on doing the top albums of each year. And wow, this year has some great stories and songs in a year that included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and the first human to orbit the earth. The legend of a larger-than-life coal miner captivated American pop culture.

Kicking off our Top 10 Songs of 1961 countdown at #10 is Jimmy Dean’s classic sing-along “Big Bad John.” Written and performed by Dean, it topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and country charts, becoming an enduring piece of American storytelling. So on a flight from New York to Nashville—heading to what he thought would be his last recording session—Jimmy Dean, who would later become the Sausage King! Jimmy Dean realized he still needed one more song for his contract. He thought back to a play he’d seen the summer before, where he met actor John Minto, a towering 6'5" figure he nicknamed “Big John.” That sparked the idea for a Paul Bunyan–like coal miner who dies heroically saving his crew from a collapsing mine.

By the time he landed in Nashville, Dean had the song’s foundation. Then he went into the studio with a couple of Legends, Roy Acuff and Floyd Cramer, and he crafted the legend of “Big Bad John.” Floyd Cramer swapped piano for hammer-and-steel strikes, giving the track its signature sound and The result was a smash—ten weeks atop the Adult Contemporary chart, five weeks #1 on the Hot 100, two weeks atop the country chart, and a 1962 Grammy for Best Country and Western Recording. Many don’t realize that Jimmy Dean’s career spanned music, TV, and film. He hosted the short-lived Jimmy Dean Show and was the first guest host for The Tonight Show during Johnny Carson’s run. He also appeared in the Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. His biggest claim to fame was forming the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company...