Running Bear ~ ~ ~ The High Country Band

Running Bear ~ ~ ~ The High Country Band
Cover as recorded by: Johnny Preston & Sonny James
Songwriter: Jiles Perry Richardson (a.k.a. The Big Bopper)
Audio & video produced by McCarty Ln Studio 1991/10-24-2024
in Rochester, IN. Recorded on a Sony WalkMan Cassette Player/Recorder.
Recorded in Delong IN, 1991.

The High Country Band
Mike Andrews - Lead Guitar - Vocals
Mike Andrews Jr - Bass Guitar
Gene Gamble Jr - R. Guitar - Lead Vocals
Louie Dimmet - Drums

Shure Beta 58 Microphone
Sony WalkMan Cassette Player/Recorder
Fostex Multi-Tracker Recorder (4)
Pioneer CT-W504R Stereo Cassette Player/Recorder
Windows Media Digital Conversion
MAGIX Sound Forge Audio Studio 17 (Editing & Mixing)
YouTube Movie Maker 13

"Running Bear" is a teenage tragedy song written by Jiles Perry Richardson (a.k.a. The Big Bopper) and sung most famously by Johnny Preston in 1959. The 1959 recording featured background vocals by George Jones and the session's producer Bill Hall, who provided the "Indian chanting" of "uga-uga" during the three verses, as well as the "Indian war cries" at the start and end of the record.

It was No. 1 for three weeks in January 1960 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States and the same on Canada's CHUM Charts. The song also reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart and New Zealand in 1960. Coincidentally, "Running Bear" was immediately preceded in the Hot 100 No. 1 position by Marty Robbins' "El Paso", and immediately followed by Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel", both of which feature a death of, or affecting, the protagonist.

Billboard ranked "Running Bear" as the No. 4 song of 1960. The tenor saxophone was played by Link Davis. Richardson was a friend of Preston and offered "Running Bear" to him after hearing him perform in a club. Preston recorded the song at the Gold Star Studios in Houston, Texas, a few months after Richardson's death in the plane crash that also killed Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. Preston was signed to Mercury Records, and "Running Bear" was released in August 1959.