IM: WHUSDJ
CURRENT SHOW
Red House
Tune into "Dark Side of the Highway" this Sunday (June 20) from 3-6 AM for a special memorial tribute to legendary 1960's country singer and sausage mogul Jimmy Dean...
Jimmy Ray Dean was born in Olton, Texas in 1928. He formed his first country group The Texas Wildcats in the late 1940's after a brief stint in the U. S. Air Force. Around this time he also hosted the popular radio program "Town and Country Time" on radio station WARL in Washington, D. C. In the early 1950's, Dean signed with Columbia Records and later in the decade hosted a variety show for the CBS television network. He also hosted the CBS News program "The Morning Show" for several years in the late 1950's and early 1960's. In 1961 he scored his biggest hit with a recitation song about a heroic miner, "Big Bad John". The song topped the country, pop, and adult contemporary charts in Billboard. His other major hits included 1962's "P. T. 109" (a song which recounted John F. Kennedy's heroic exploits as a torpedo boat captain during World War II) and the 1965 chart topper "The First Thing Ev'ry Morning (and the Last Thing Ev'ry Night)". In the mid 1960's he hosted "The Jimmy Dean Show On ABC-TV, which at the time was one of the few major netork television programs to regularly present country and western music to a mainstream audience. Dean was also an actor of some note, having appeared on the television series "Daniel Boone" and '"Fantasy Island" and in the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever" (in his best known role as reclusive millionaire Willard Whyte). More than all of his music, television, and film credits, Jimmy Dean will always be well remembered for the line of pork sausage products bearing his name. The Jimmy Dean Sausage Company, founded in 1969 by Dean and his brother Don, is still in existence today (now called Jimmy Dean Foods) and is currently owned and operated by the Sara Lee Coporation. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame earlier this year. Jimmy Dean passed away on July 13, 2010 at his home in Varina, Virginia at the age of 81.