Jimmy Dean

American country music singer, television host, actor and businessman. Dean’s early hits included "Bummin' Around" in 1953. From 1954, he hosted the popular Washington D.C. radio program Town and Country Time, then The Jimmy Dean Show, 1958-59. His 1961 Billboard number one song about a heroic miner, "Big Bad John," sold over one million copies, and won him the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. He helped bring country music into the mainstream with his 1963–66 ABC-TV variety series, The Jimmy Dean Show, which gave puppeteer Jim Henson his first national media exposure. In 1965, he achieved a second number one country hit with the ballad "The First Thing Ev'ry Morning (And the Last Thing Ev'ry Night)." In 1976, he achieved a million-seller with a song tribute to his mother and mothers everywhere called "I.O.U." The song was released a few weeks before Mother's Day. In 1969, he founded the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company with his brother Don. Its success led to its acquisition in 1984 by a major takeover company. On 23 February 2010, Dean was nominated for the Country Music Hall of Fame; and was inducted posthumously. He died at the age of 81, on 13 June 2010, at Varina, Virginia. Link to Wikipedia biography