"Big Bad John" Singer Jimmy Dean Passes Away At Age 81

"Big Bad John" Singer Jimmy Dean Passes Away At Age 81


Posted: 13 Jun 2010 10:06 PM PDT






Jimmy Dean, a country music legend for his smash hit about a workingman hero,
"Big Bad John," and an entrepreneur known for his sausage brand, died on Sunday.
He was 81. Dean was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in February. He
was to be inducted in October.

His wife, Donna Meade Dean, said her
husband died at their Henrico County, Va., home. She told The Associated Press
that he had some health problems but was still functioning well, so his death
came as a shock. She said he was eating in front of the television. She left the
room for a time and came back and he was unresponsive. She said he was
pronounced dead at 7:54 p.m.

"He was amazing," she said. "He had a lot of
talents."

Born in 1928, Dean was raised in poverty in Plainview, Texas,
and dropped out of high school after the ninth grade. He went on to a successful
entertainment career in the 1950s and '60s that included the nationally
televised "The Jimmy Dean Show."

In 1969, Dean went into the sausage
business, starting the Jimmy Dean Meat Co. in his hometown. He sold the company
to Sara Lee Corp. in 1984.

Dean lived in semiretirement with his wife,
who is a songwriter and recording artist, on their 200-acre estate just outside
Richmond, where he enjoyed investing, boating and watching the sun set over the
James River.


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