Jimmy Dickens Dies at 94

[GradyPhilpott]

I hate to be the bearer of so much bad news, but these people are the stuff of my own life and memories. It's a shame to see so many go so quickly and it's sad harbinger of the fate we all face and how soon that fate might come.

Little Jimmy Dickens, the diminutive but big-voiced country singer best known for his novelty recordings and his self-deprecating sense of humor, died on Friday at a hospital here. He was 94.

Michael Manning, a staff member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, confirmed the death.

For decades a fan favorite at the Grand Ole Opry — and still active there into his 90s — Mr. Dickens stood 4-foot-11 and liked to joke about his stature, often referring to himself as “Mighty Mouse in Pajamas.” The label that stuck with him, though, was Tater, a nod to his 1949 hit “Take an Old Cold ’Tater (and Wait).” Hank Williams, his fellow Opry star at the time, supplied him with the nickname.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/ny...er=rss&emc=rss