Dickens spent the next ten years performing on stations throughout the Midwest, often capitalizing on his diminutive size to play roles much younger than his actual age, and it was during a stint on WIBC-Indianapolis that T. Texas Tyler dubbed him “Little Jimmy.” In 1946, Roy Acuff heard him perform in Cincinnati and was impressed. Two years later, Acuff invited him to Nashville; he introduced Dickens to Art Satherly at Columbia Records and officials from the Grand Ole Opry. Dickens joined the Opry in August and signed with Columbia in September.
Columbia released their first Dickens single, “Take an Old Cold Tater and Wait,” that February. It peaked at No. 7 and kicked off a string of hits for Dickens. His biggest, “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose,” came in 1965 and reached No. 1 on the country music charts and No. 15 on the pop charts. Famous for such novelty songs, Dickens also excelled as a singer of more serious pieces. His “heart” songs – “Take Me As I Am,” “We Could,” “Just When I Needed You,” and others – are “some of the best ballads the industry had to offer,” biographer Eddie Stubbs argues, “interpreted by one of the genre’s most emotion packed voices.”
Toward the end of Dickens’s life, fellow West Virginia native Brad Paisley included him in a number of country music videos and featured him on several CDs, along with other Opry mainstays George Jones and Bill Anderson, calling themselves “the Kung-Pao Buckaroos.” He continued to make regular appearances as a host on the Opry. His last appearance on the show was just days before he suffered the stroke that would lead to his death, a week later. At his passing, Little Jimmy Dickens had been a member of the Grand Ole Opry for more than 66 years, longer than any other country artist in history.
Born: December 19, 1920, Bolt, West Virginia; Died: January 2, 2015, Nashville, Tennessee
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