83-year-old Sylacauga, Alabama native Jim Nabors became a household name around the world thanks to his role as Gomer Pyle in The Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., but for racing fans, Nabors’ voice has for the last four decades supplied the soundtrack for the most famous race of them all — The Indianapolis 500.
Nabors was invited in 1972 to sing “Back Home Again in Indiana,” the song that is traditionally sung before the race begins every Memorial Day weekend.
“I thought I was going to sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,” Nabors said of the first time he was invited to sing at Indy. “Whenever I got over there to meet the conductor, I said, ‘What key are you guys doing this in?’ He looked at me and said, ‘We only have one key.’ I said, ‘No, The Star-Spangled Banner has two keys.’ He said, ‘Well, you’re not singing that.’ It was only five minutes before race time.
“I’d never seen that many people before in my life, and so, I said, ‘What am I singing?’ He said, ‘You’re singing the traditional song that opens the race (Back Home Again in Indiana).
“I looked at him kind of funny and I said, ‘I’m from Alabama. Do you still want me to do it?’”
And do it he did — 37 times over the next 42 years.
On Sunday, Nabors sang “Back Home Again in Indiana” for the final time at the Indy 500. 300,000 fans stood in his honor as he rode around the track in a ceremonial Pace Car before the race began.
“It’s going to take me a long time to sort it all – it was so incredible,” Nabors told Fox Sports. “I had tears when they took me around in the Pace Car and everybody stood at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That broke my heart.
“But there’s a time in life when you have to move on. I’ll be 84 this year and I just figured it was time. It’s kind of hard to travel and there’s just a bunch of reasons. This is really the highlight of my year.
“It’s very sad for me but there’s something inside me that tells me when to go.”
Nabors was born and raised in Sylacauga and graduated from the University of Alabama. He moved to New York upon graduating and was a typist for the United Nations. He got his first job in the television industry a year later as a film cutter. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he performed at a local tavern called The Horn. Andy Griffith discovered him there and hired him to play a one-shot role as an “addlebrained” gas station attendant named Gomer Pyle. The rest, as they say, is history.
Although Nabors is best known for his television appearances, he has also recorded 28 albums, including 3 that went gold (500,000 sold) and one that went platinum (1 million sold).
He now lives in Hawaii, but fans can still view the largest public display of Jim Nabors memorabilia in the world at the Isabel A. Comer Museum in Sylacauga.
Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims
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