Jimmy Dean with Patsy Cline. Photo courtesy of Deancountry.com
Singer Jimmy Dean, who died over the weekend at his home outside Richmond, played a major role in Washington’s country-music renaissance of the 1950s. A Texas native, Dean was stationed at nearby Bolling Air Force Base when he started playing around town with his band, the Texas Wildcats. He was a strapping cowboy, tall and high-cheekboned, and despite the sometimes dull nature of his songbook, he wore a near-constant smile that carved deep canyons around his mouth.
Onstage, Dean was more crooner than howler—Dean Martin of the backwoods, Hank Williams goes to Hollywood. In his finest recordings (“Big Bad John,” “PT 109”), he told character-driven stories of survival, talking over the music the way Charlie Daniels—who remains, in my estimation, Dean’s clearest musical acolyte—does in the verses of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
Teaming up with local producer Connie B. Gay, Dean went on to host Washington’s answer to Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, a radio and TV program called Town and Country, which featured local talent such as Patsy Cline and Roy Clark. The popularity of the show and Washington’s crop of rising stars led some to wonder whether country music might become an industry in Washington, but those hopes were gradually dashed as producers such as Owen Bradley lured artists looking for heartland alternatives to Los Angeles and New York to record on the cheap in Nashville.
Dean would land several radio hits and attain to a semi-successful run in TV and film, but he never quite fit into the Music City establishment, unlike Cline—whose swooning voice came to embody “the Nashville sound,” a polished brand of city-inspired country that helped ratchet the genre from roadhouse stages into the mainstream—and Clark, who was a regular on the variety show Hee Haw.
Because of the brevity of his stardom and the hitches in his output, Dean’s induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame this year was questionable, akin to the Library of America giving H.P. Lovecraft his own volume. But Dean’s influence on Washington’s music scene was substantial and deserves, along with our local music history in general, deeper appraisal and wider recognition.
Remembering Jimmy Dean
Singer Jimmy Dean, who died over the weekend at his home outside Richmond, played a major role in Washington’s country-music renaissance of the 1950s. A Texas native, Dean was stationed at nearby Bolling Air Force Base when he started playing around town with his band, the Texas Wildcats. He was a strapping cowboy, tall and high-cheekboned, and despite the sometimes dull nature of his songbook, he wore a near-constant smile that carved deep canyons around his mouth.
Onstage, Dean was more crooner than howler—Dean Martin of the backwoods, Hank Williams goes to Hollywood. In his finest recordings (“Big Bad John,” “PT 109”), he told character-driven stories of survival, talking over the music the way Charlie Daniels—who remains, in my estimation, Dean’s clearest musical acolyte—does in the verses of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
Teaming up with local producer Connie B. Gay, Dean went on to host Washington’s answer to Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, a radio and TV program called Town and Country, which featured local talent such as Patsy Cline and Roy Clark. The popularity of the show and Washington’s crop of rising stars led some to wonder whether country music might become an industry in Washington, but those hopes were gradually dashed as producers such as Owen Bradley lured artists looking for heartland alternatives to Los Angeles and New York to record on the cheap in Nashville.
Dean would land several radio hits and attain to a semi-successful run in TV and film, but he never quite fit into the Music City establishment, unlike Cline—whose swooning voice came to embody “the Nashville sound,” a polished brand of city-inspired country that helped ratchet the genre from roadhouse stages into the mainstream—and Clark, who was a regular on the variety show Hee Haw.
Because of the brevity of his stardom and the hitches in his output, Dean’s induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame this year was questionable, akin to the Library of America giving H.P. Lovecraft his own volume. But Dean’s influence on Washington’s music scene was substantial and deserves, along with our local music history in general, deeper appraisal and wider recognition.
Subscribe to Washingtonian
Follow Washingtonian on Twitter
More>> Capital Comment Blog | News & Politics | Party Photos
Most Popular in News & Politics
What It Felt Like for a Virginia Marching Band to Win Metallica’s Contest
What’s IN and OUT in DC Restaurant Trends for 2024
Introducing 8 of DC’s Most Stylish
Best of Washington 2023: Things to Eat, Drink, Do, and Know Right Now
Washingtonian Magazine
May 2024: Great Getaways
View IssueSubscribe
Follow Us on Social
Follow Us on Social
Related
13 Major Concerts and Music Festivals in the DC Area This Spring
Mary Timony on Her Emotional New Album, “Untame the Tiger”
The Beatles in DC: A New Exhibit in Maryland Looks Back on Early Beatlemania
Northern Virginia High School Wins Metallica’s Marching Band Competition
More from News & Politics
Democrats and Republicans Pass Balls, Not Bills, at Congressional Soccer Game
3 New Memoirs by Prominent Women
Everything You Wanted to Know About Urban Bear Sightings but Were Afraid to Ask, Because Who Wants to Get That Close to a Bear?
Rockville Police Are Searching for Culprits of a $4,500 Pickleball Paddle Heist
Dozens of Vintage Planes Will Fly Over the National Mall This Saturday
PHOTOS: “Rupaul’s Drag Race” Queens Work It at the National Mall
Meet the NIH Detectives Cracking Medicine’s Toughest Cases
5 of DC’s Most Interesting Ideas for Revitalizing Chinatown