Johnny Preston

Born John Preston Courville on August 18, 1939, in Port Arthur, Texas, the early rock & roll vocalist Johnny Preston grew up with Cajun and German roots. After finishing high school, where he competed in choral contests across the state, he enrolled at Lamar State College in Beaumont and assembled his initial group, the Shades, in 1957 for local club engagements. During one such performance in 1958, J.P. Richardson—known professionally as the Big Bopper—discovered him and introduced the tune “Running Bear,” a whimsical American Indian take on Romeo and Juliet. The track was cut at Gold Star Studios in Houston under producer Bill Hall, with Link Davis on saxophone and backing chants supplied by Hall, Richardson, and a young George Jones. Richardson then presented the master to Shelby Singleton at Mercury Records, where he himself was already under contract following the 1958 success of “Chantilly Lace,” securing Preston a deal with the label.

Issued shortly after Richardson’s death in the October 1959 plane crash that also took Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, “Running Bear” reached number one in the United States by January 1960 and topped the British charts by March, eventually selling more than a million copies worldwide. The follow-up “Cradle of Love,” a nursery-rhyme-styled novelty, also entered the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic, while “I’m Starting to Go Steady” and its B-side revival of Shirley & Lee’s “Feel So Fine” each reached the top twenty later that year; “Leave My Kitten Alone,” later made famous by John Lennon, stalled at number 73 on the Billboard chart as 1960 closed. Preston subsequently recorded for Imperial Records, TCF Hall, ABC Records, Kapp, and Hallway without further chart success. He continued on nostalgia package tours and club circuits, earning induction into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, yet never returned to the studio as a hitmaker. Heart ailments led to his death on March 4, 2011, in Beaumont, Texas.