I know that Andy went and saw him, but also my friend Bill Dana claimed that he was the first one to see Jim do it. So that’s what Jim was doing: the hick act and then opening up his mouth and singing with that gorgeous voice of his. So the thing that got Andy noticed was the routine, ‘What it was, was football,’ approaching it as if a southerner doesn’t know what football is. Most people don’t know this about Andy, that originally what made him famous and brought him to national attention was where he did a stage act of a Southerner looking at something that most Americans think is ordinary, but seeing it through different eyes. He wanted to be a singer/actor kind of guy, and he put together an act kind of loosely based on a cabaret act Andy Griffith had done. Geoffrey Mark, an entertainment performer, author and pop culture historian, explains, “Jim wanted to do stage work.
