Little Jimmy Dickens fondly remembered

BOLT Little Jimmy Dickens sister Edna Allen knows for a fact this is her older brothers home town, but at one point she had questions about who their grandparents were.

Theres a 14 years age difference between us, she said last week. One day I came home and asked my mom how many grandparents do we have? She told me we had two on each side and then asked why. I said because everyone I talk to said they raised Jimmy.

Wherever county musics cut-up traveled, he never forgot Bolt was home and hearth.

On Saturday morning, news of the towns favorite son passing away Friday night at the age of 94 traveled fast. He died in a Nashville-area hospital of cardiac arrest after suffering a stroke on Christmas Day, according to The Associated Press.

Almost everyone in Bolt had a positive Little Jimmy Dickens story.

Country Singer Carrie Underwood said before Dickens passing,"When you think of Little Jimmy Dickens, you smile ... He is just one of those people who spreads happiness wherever he goes.

True and accurate, said the people of Bolt. When asked about Little Jimmy Dickens their faces light up and hands wave around with excitement.

He sat right there in those chairs with my granddad and talked for hours, recalled Larry Wright Jr., smiling and talking faster than normal in excitement.

Wright was working on a truck at Larrys Towing when interviewed last week. They talked about the old days, he said. They talked a long time.

It wasnt his fame that made the people of Bolt love Little Jimmy Dickens. No, he was born one of them and stayed one of them, many in Bolt said Saturday morning.

He was always Jimmy around here, said his sister. Dickens would often call on old area friends when visiting Allen.

One person he would visit was childhood friend Carol Worley-Johnson and her husband, Wayville, of Bolt. On a summer visit, he stopped by and accompanied Worley-Johnson to her familys graveyard, where several Dickenses are buried, she said.

Worley-Johnson said Dickens was a popular young man. She and her brothers would fight over who got to sit next to Dickens in church and walk with him to school.

But there is one trait of his that she remembers most: His guitar was always with him, she said. He took his guitar everywhere growing up.

A number of people also told stories of Dickens walking the backroads of Raleigh County with his guitar. Often, it was said, miners going to and from work would stop and offer him a ride.

Jeane McKinney remembers sitting on her familys front porch listening t0 Dickens and her uncle Estel Wood pickin and a-singin country tunes.

My uncle Estel taught him how to pick, McKinney claims. They got together in 42 or 43 and fastly became friends, more like brothers than friends.

McKinney said many a weekend, Dickens and Wood would eat dinner at her grandmothers house before traveling to play music at a local venue.

After dropping out of West Virginia University sometime in the late 1930s, Dickens gained radio experience at the age of 18, where he debuted on WJLS in Beckley, followed by Fairmonts WMMN.

Dickens said of his WJLS experience, I was not paid for it. I was just hanging out and they let me do that. I did it for a year or so, then eventually I worked my way to doing a song.

McKinney said shortly after performing statewide, Dickens headed for larger stations, including WIBC in Indianapolis and WLW in Cincinnati, before heading to Nashville.

He asked my uncle to go along with him, but my uncle did not go, she said. To be honest, Uncle Estle was probably too lazy.

With the help of Roy Acuff, Dickens was invited to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1948.

That was also the year Dickens signed with Columbia Records and had several hits, including May The Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose and Sleeping At The Foot of the Bed.

Dickens did have a number of other hits, including a few romantic ballets. However, he remained best known for humorous songs, which the 4-foot-11-inch performer rendered on stage with gusto.

In the book Country Music Changed My Life, Dickens credits Minnie Pearl for helping him cultivate his comedy performance. She knew I was new to the Opry, and she took a liking to me. Id go on the stage and do some little gag and shed watch me while I worked. When Id come off shed say, Do you want me to teach you how to get a better laugh out of a joke? The shed take the time to show me what to do, the timing on it. The timing on being funny is the most important thing and she taught me all that, he wrote.

To write Dickens loved the Grand Ole Opry is not too strong. He was the longest running member of the show. He last performed there on Dec. 20, 2014, singing Out Behind the Barn.

In a recent quote, Dickens said, I look forward from one weekend to another to get back out on that stage of the Grand Ole Opry and try to entertain people who have some traveled for miles and miles and state to state to be entertained with country music. We do our very, very best to give them a good presentation and hope that they enjoy themselves.

In Bolt, his humorous songs are popular, but Country Boy, a ballad about growing up in a rural area, and Take an Old Cold Tater (And Wait) are favorites.

I am a plain, old country boy/A corn-bread lovin country boy/I raise cain on Saturday/But I go to church on Sunday/I am a plain, old country boy, the chorus goes.

It continues, Where I come from, opportunities, they never were too good/We never had much money, but we done the best we could ...

In his first Top 10 Country hit, Take an Old Cold Tater (And Wait), Dickens may have explained his small size.

Now taters never did taste good with chicken on the plate/But I had to eat em just the same/That is why I look so bad and have these puny ways/Cause I always had to take an old cold tater and wait, a stanza goes.

Allen said those songs have some truth to how they grew up. We ate a lot of corn bread, she said.

Dickens was the oldest of 13 children born to a coal miner, but raised mostly by his grandmother. The family was poor, but proud. They always had food to eat even it it was a cold tater or corn bread and friends and family near.

In Country Music Changed My Life, Dickens wrote there was always a guitar around the house that a relative was playing and he learned the basics from them, forging his style during family sing-alongs.

I knew from childhood that I wanted to be an entertainer, he wrote. That was my one wish in life, to be on stage as an entertainer.

Once he was asked why he did not become a coal miner. I wouldnt have worked in the mines; I wasnt large enough, he quipped.

Crooning isnt the only thing Dickens was known for. He also had a lasting impact on American popular culture via his rhinestone western wear. His suits were made by Los Angeles designer Nudie.

Well, I was the first on the Grand Ole Opry to wear rhinestones, he said in the book. Mr. Nudie had made some suits for me during the the early fifties without rhinestones and one day I was in his office there in north Hollywood and he said Im doing something with rhinestones now if youd be interested in it. Then he showed me some of his work that he had done and I said Thats for me! So I started wearing the rhinestones and the rest is history.

In her Raleigh County home, Allen has a few of those rhinestone suits. I am so proud of them, she said, holding one such suit decorated with sparkling rhinestone studs.

After a pregnant pause to think, Allen added as an afterthought, I am proud of Jimmy.

On Friday night and Saturday morning, scores of country musicians sent out tweets, texts and Facebook messages honoring Little Jimmy Dickens.

Another West Virginia native, Brad Paisley, who sometimes featured Dickens in his videos, wrote: There was no one funnier, or with a better sense of it. A true entertainer? The best Ive ever seen. Charm? Unmatched. Love? This was a big one. I think he loved everyone he ever met, and if not, he never let it be known.

Carrie Underwood Tweeted: I know why its raining in Nashville. Little Jimmy is in heaven now making the angels laugh so hard, theyre crying. Well miss you, friend!

The vice president and general manager of the Grand Ole Opry, Peter Fisher, said, The Grand Ole Opry did not have a better friend than Little Jimmy Dickens. He loved the audience and his Opry family and all of us loved him back. He was a one-of-kind entertainer and a great soul whose spirit will live on for years to come.

Allens sibling may have been the first country singer to circle the globe, he may have performed for millions of people, recorded more than 200 songs, been elected into the prestigious Country Music Hall of Fame, or been a household name.

He (was known) as just Jimmy around here, she said.

Dickens is survived by a wife, Mona, and two daughters. A public memorial is slated for a later date.

Daniel Tyson is a reporter for the Register-Herald

Source: http://www.bdtonline.com/news/little-jimmy-dickens-fondly-remembered/article_b1888862-93b1-11e4-9acd-b7fa1cd88c97.html