Storyline
The song talks of a young Arkansas boy who would skip school and visit a local auction barn. Becoming mesmerized by the auction chant, he decides he wants to be an auctioneer, regularly practising the chant behind the family barn.
Though his parents are initially displeased with his career choice, they eventually relent, but (not wanting their family name to be tarnished because of poor auctioneering skills) they send him to auction school to properly learn the trade.
He returns home a full-fledged auctioneer. Gradually, he becomes a top quality auctioneer, to a point where he ends up purchasing an airplane just to keep up with his sudden business demands.
Van Dyke later stated that the story was largely true; the only artistic license he took with it was changing his cousin's home state from Missouri to Arkansas for scansion purposes: "nothing rhymed with Missouri." [6]
Mitchell Parish was an American lyricist, notably as a writer of songs for stage and screen.
Richard Wayne Van Dyke is an American actor, entertainer and comedian. His work spans screen and stage, and his accolades include a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, and six Emmy Awards. Inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1993, he was also honored with the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2013, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2020, and was recognized as a Disney Legend in 1998.
Leroy Frank Van Dyke is an American country music and honky-tonk singer and guitarist, best known for his hits "The Auctioneer" (1956) and "Walk on By" (1961).
Jerry Paul Keller is an American pop singer and songwriter, best known for his 1959 hit song "Here Comes Summer".
The Small One is a 1978 American animated featurette produced by Walt Disney Productions and released theatrically by Buena Vista Distribution on December 16, 1978, with a re-issue of Pinocchio (1940). The story is based on a 1947 children's book of the same name by Charles Tazewell and was a project for the new generation of Disney animators including Don Bluth, Jerry Rees, Henry Selick, Gary Goldman, and John Pomeroy.
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"How Long, How Long Blues" is a blues song recorded by the American blues duo Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell in 1928. It became an early blues standard and its melody inspired many later songs.
Auction chant is a rhythmic repetition of numbers and "filler words" spoken by auctioneers when taking bids at an auction. Auction chanting is a method of conducting live auctions frequently found in North America where it is practiced in English, Spanish, French and other languages. It is much less common outside North America, and the most notable exceptions within North America are auction houses with significant ties elsewhere in the world such as art brokerages. The chant consists of at least the current price, the asking price to outbid and words to keep the audience engaged. Auctioneers typically develop their own style, and competitions are held to judge them. Outside of auctions, the chant has been the subject of music and used in commercials and film.
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"Walk on By" is a song written by Kendall Hayes and performed by American country music artist Leroy Van Dyke. It was released in June 1961 as the first single and title track from the album Walk On By. The song was Van Dyke's most successful single, spending 37 weeks on the country chart and a record-breaking 19 at the number-one position. "Walk on By" crossed over to the pop chart peaking at number five, and was named by Billboard magazine, in its 100th anniversary issue (1994), as the biggest country music record in history.
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