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:
“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“There is no example in history of a revolutionary movement involving such gigantic masses being so bloodless.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)