Personalities | Sheb Wooley | One-Hit Wonders | Rock

‘Purple People Eater’, 1958

Sheb Wooley’s ‘Purple People Eater’ stayed at No. 1 in the US charts for six weeks. Despite being a serious country musician since 1945, Wooley’s hit was a comedy song that parodied popular culture’s horror-movie craze. Wooley had to fight with his record label to get the song released, and despite its success, he would not get to see another hit until 1962’s country song, ‘That’s My Dad’. Wooley continued to record under both his own name, and the pseudonym Ben Colder, well into the 1980s. He died of leukaemia in 2003.

Personalities | Phil Phillips | One-Hit Wonders | Rock

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

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