History
Columbia Records was considering dropping Dean before the release of this million-selling single, as he hadn't had a hit in years. Dean wrote the song on a flight from New York to Nashville because he realized he needed a fourth song for his recording session.
The inspiration for the character of Big John was an actor, John Minto, that Dean met in a summer stock play, Destry Rides Again, who was 6'5". Dean would call him "Big John" and grew to like the rolling sound of the phrase.
Country pianist Floyd Cramer, who was hired to play piano on the song, came up with the idea to use a hammer and a piece of steel instead. This became a distinctive characteristic of the recording.
There are several known recordings of the song by Dean. Notably, there are two different versions of the inscription on the marble stand in front of the mine. The original, "At the bottom of this mine lies one hell of a man---Big John", was deemed too controversial, so in the version that was most often heard on the radio, one could hear "At the bottom of this mine lies a big, big man---Big John" instead. (However, a verse earlier in the song, "Through the smoke and the dust of this man-made hell ..." remains intact in both versions, with no apparent controversy.)
The refrain was also used to end the Jimmy Dean song "PT-109", referring to John F. Kennedy.
Read more about this topic: Big Bad John
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In the history of the United States, there is no continuity at all. You can cut through it anywhere and nothing on this side of the cut has anything to do with anything on the other side.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (18381918)
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (18871948)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)