| Date: |
Monday, January 1, 2001
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| Question/Topic: |
Ballad of Davy Crockett
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| Answer/Pointer: |
The original two stanzas of the blockbuster song "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" went as follows:
Born on a mountain top in Tennessee,
Greenest state in the Land of the Free.
Raised in the woods so's he knew ev'ry tree
Kilt him a b'ar when he was only three.
Davy, Davy Crockett,
King of the wild frontier.
In eighteen thirteen the Creeks uprose,
addin' redskin arrows to the country's woes.
Now Injun fightin' is somethin' he knows
so he shoulders his rifle an' off he goes.
Dvy, Davy Crockett
King of the wild frontier.
"Crockettmania" swept the country by storm, launching an astonishing marketing phenomenon that
Disney used to full advantage. Everywhere you went, there were coonskin hats (a presidential candidate,
Sen. Estes Kefauver from Tennessee, even used it as his campaign symbol), jeans, lunch buckets, and
hundreds of Davy Crockett-imprinted items. Time Magazine estimated that, within months, more than
$100 million in Davy Crockett merchandise had been sold. "The Ballad of Davy Crocket" spent more than
six months on the Hit Parade, was recorded on more than 200 record labels around the world, and sold more
than ten million records.
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| Librarian: |
LCLCPL
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| Comments: |
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