“Travelin' Man” by Ricky Nelson

"Travelin' Man" was Ricky Nelson's 1961 hit on Imperial, and it reached him secondhand. Jerry Fuller wrote it with Sam Cooke in mind, but Cooke's manager wasn't impressed and didn't hang on to the demo, which eventually got handed along to Nelson. His record, cushioned by the vocal quartet the Jordanaires, climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

It went out as a double A-side with "Hello Mary Lou", which made No. 9 on the same chart, and in Britain the pairing reached No. 2, the biggest hit Nelson ever had there. Decades later it turns up on the 1992 set The Legendary Ricky Nelson.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.