On June 13, 2010, Jimmy Dean died of natural causes at his Virginia home at age 81. While most recognized him from the popular breakfast sausage brand that bore his name, Dean was a country music singer, TV host, and actor in addition to his business ventures. In fact, he had been named among that year’s Country Music Hall of Fame class just four months before his death. Today, we’re diving into the life and career of multi-dimensional entertainer and businessman Jimmy Dean.
Dean had been experiencing health problems prior to his death, but was otherwise in good shape. His wife, Donna Dean, told the Associated Press that he was eating in front of the television when she found him unresponsive.
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“He was amazing,” she said. “He had a lot of talents.”
Jimmy Dean was survived by his wife, three children and two grandchildren.
How Jimmy Dean Transcended Poverty to Build an Empire
Born August 10, 1928, in Seth Ward, Texas, Jimmy Ray Dean grew up in nearby Plainview.
When he was 10 years old, his mother taught Dean how to play the piano. He later taught himself to play the accordion and the harmonica.
Dean’s formal music career began during a stint in the U.S. Air Force. He landed an accordionist gig at a tavern near Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., where he was stationed during the 1940s.
After leaving the military in 1948, Dean assembled his band, the Texas Wildcats. The group “played every dive in Washington at one time or another,” he recalled. “And dives is what they were.”
First breaking into radio broadcasting, Dean’s break arrived in 1952 when Fred Foster, eventual founder of Monument Records, saw him perform in Washington, D.C.
“He may not be the greatest singer in the world, but he communicates with the audience like you cannot believe,” Foster told music publisher Ben Adelman.
Dean scored his first top five hit the next year with “Bumming Around”. Four years later, he signed a contract with Columbia Records.
While that was his only chart hit of the decades, Dean thrived on TV, first starring in the local favorite Town and Country Time before landing his own show on CBS.
Finally Breaking Through in Music
Jimmy Dean scored his first major hit with the self-penned “Big Bad John,” which soared to the top of both the country and pop charts in 1961.
“Big Bad John” also became one of the earliest country performances to win a Grammy, for Best Country & Western Recording. Dean wrote the song, about a coal miner who saves his co-workers following a roof collapse, in less than two hours.
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1962 brought five more Top Twenty country hits for Dean: “Dear Ivan,” “The Cajun Queen,” “To a Sleeping Beauty,” “Little Black Book,” and “P.T. 109″. Another number-one hit arrived in 1965 with the ballad “The First Thing Ev’ry Morning (And the Last Thing Ev’ry Night)”.
Featured image by CBS via Getty Images