Click below to hear Jim Nabor's
version of "Rock-A-Bye"
Jim Nabors, he of the vacuous expression and the dumbstruck
expletives "Gawwwleee" and "Shazzayam," graduated from the
University of Alabama with a degree in business administration.
Nabors' first TV job was as an apprentice film cutter; shortly
afterward, he launched a fitfully successful career as a
cabaret singer. In 1963, he was hired to play the one-shot role
of gas station attendant Gomer Pyle on the top-rated The Andy
Griffith Show. Essentially a build-up to a punchline (Griffith
explained to a nonplused stranger that the goofy Gomer planned
to become a brain surgeon), Nabor's hayseed character proved so
popular that he became a regular on the series. In 1964, with
Griffith's manager Richard O. Linke calling the shots, Nabors
was spun off into his own weekly sitcom, Gomer Pyle USMC, which
ran for five successful seasons. Televiewers got their first
inkling that there was more to Nabors than Gomer when, on a
1964 Danny Kaye Show, he revealed his rich, well-modulated
baritone singing voice. He went on to record 16 popular record
albums, utilizing his high-pitched Gomer voice in only one of
them (1965's Shazzam). Nabors' larynx was further deployed on
his TV variety series The Jim Nabors Show (1969-72), on the
1967 opening episode (and every subsequent season opener) of
The Carol Burnett Show, and in countless personal appearances
all over the world. Additionally, Nabors starred in such 1970s
Saturday morning kiddie efforts as Krofft Supershow, The Lost
Saucer and Buford and the Galloping Ghost (voice only). He
played his first serious role as a vengeful hillbilly on a 1973
episode of TVs The Rookies, and essayed comic supporting parts
in such good-ole-boy films as Cannonball Run (1978) and The
Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), both starring his close
friend Burt Reynolds. Because Nabors never married, he found
himself the target of numerous ugly and unfounded rumors
concerning his private life. When he became deathly ill in the
mid-1980s, there were those who jumped to the conclusion that
Nabors had contacted AIDS. In fact, he had fallen victim to a
particularly vicious form of hepatitis, picked up (according to
Nabors) when he cut himself while shaving in India. Nabors
recovered from his ailment after a highly publicized liver
transplant saved his life.
Along the way, Jim Nabors recorded this version of a popular Jolson song. Although he used the "politically correct" lyrics to the song, you can enjoy this recording of
Jim Nabors singing "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody."
