"Little" Jimmy Dickens, a country singer who recorded such novelty hits as I'm Little but I'm Loud and May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose, died Friday afternoon at a Nashville-area hospital. He was 94 and the last member of the Grand Ole Opry actually older than the radio show itself.
Dickens was a longtime fixture of the Opry and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1983. He also was known for his comedic routines in which the 4-foot-11 entertainer referred to himself as "Mighty Mouse in pajamas" and "Willie Nelson after taxes."
When the Opry, then called the WSM Barn Dance, first broadcast on Nashville's WSM-AM in November 1925, Dickens was a 4-year-old in southern West Virginia, the oldest of 13 children.
He joined the Opry cast in 1948, the same year he signed with Columbia Records. He had his first hit in 1949 with Take an Old Cold 'Tater (And Wait), the song from which fellow Opry member Hank Williams drew the nickname that stuck with Dickens for decades — "Tater."
He would join Brad Paisley on his cd's and be a comical guest for their monologues at the CMA Awards.
He last performed at the Opry on his 94th Birthday on December 20 before falling ill.
Imagine all the country music history he saw and the people he knew from the golden era of Country Music.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/m...dies/20994825/
