Awakenings: Hogs & Music

This Day in Music History: November 6, 1961

One of the best, as well as most common, breakfast foods is sausage. Its spicy flavor and tantalizing aroma combine as an instant invitation to 'come and get it'! This, of course, would be a second behind bacon to some with both often finding themselves on the same plate at the same time. When you just can't seem to make the choice, you eat them both! Thoughts of fresh sausage, sausage links and patties, fresh bacon, fully cooked bacon, breakfast bowls, pancakes and sausage-on-a-stick, omelets, and more might bring on a very well known name that has branded such food since 1969. But, did you know this same individual is a music icon?

Jimmy Ray Dean, known to most as simply Jimmy Dean: his charming, folksy personality and business-savvy led him to become a Grammy Award musician, actor, television host and entrepreneur

In the era of the 40s, it was not unusual for children to drop out of school to help provide for the family. This occurrence is in no way comparable to what we might call a drop-out in this day and age. Times were hard but families were tight, had to be in order to survive. Such was the background of Jimmy Dean. Dean's impoverish life and ridicule made him pursue even harder every thought and desire he had for being successful in life.

Dean later credited this hard-knock upbringing with giving him his entrepreneurial spirit, and burning desire to succeed. "I think the kids in school that laughed at the clothes that we wore and the house that we lived in and then my mother had to cut hair ... I think that was a good motivator," Dean later told reporters. "Every time they laughed at me, they just built a fire and there was only one way to put it out—to try and show 'em I was as good as they were." Source: biography.com

On this day in history...

1961 Jimmy Dean started a five week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Big Bad John', a No.2 on the UK chart. 'Big Bad John' is a song about a brave coal miner who saves his fellow workers during a mind tragedy. The single hit No.1 on both the country and pop charts, earned Dean a Grammy Award, and put the singer firmly into the mainstream music business. Jimmy went on to present a prime time variety show on US TV.