Jimmy Dean dies at 81, demand for his song as Virginia State song rages
Country music singer Jimmy Dean died on Sunday, he was 81. The Virginian singer, television actor and sausage magnate is a huge figure in music and had penned many songs as well.
Country music singer Jimmy Dean died on Sunday, he was 81. The Virginian singer, television actor and sausage magnate is a huge figure in music and had penned many songs as well. His death could renew an old demand to adopt songs penned by him as Virginia's official state anthem.
It should be noted that Virginia is one of the state which has no official tune and it has been the status since 1997, when the General Assembly retired "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia," because its lyrics were deemed racist. The state has tried several times to shortlist and finalise a song as a replacement but has not been successful as yet.
It had earlier appointed a 12 member committee that suggested some 400 songs and short listed 8 of them as finalists. One of those finalists was the appropriately titled "Virginia." It was a ditty played for legislative committees by its composer, song-writer and Varina resident Jimmy Dean.
But the committee broke down as a lawsuit from some person claimed that the committee was biased in favour of Jimmy Dean.
"It just got into politics, and you know how things get when they get into politics," Jimmy Dean told the Post in 2006, at a time when the state was considering naming the song "Shenandoah" as the official state song.
"'Shenandoah' really has no reference to Virginia," Dean said then, still pushing his own tune. "Ours was written for and about Virginia."
Now that the great singer, Jimmy Dean is no more, the demand rages on and the sympathy swings in his favour. It might be a time for the state to ponder on considering his songs as the official song of a state which has none!
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