#987: Dear Ivan by Jimmy Dean
Peak Month: December 1961
5 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #24
Hot Prospects ~ CKWX ~ December 16, 1961
YouTube.com: “Dear Ivan”
Lyrics: “Dear Ivan”
In 1928 Jimmy Ray Dean was born in Plainview, Texas. His mother taught him to play piano. He dropped out of high school to work to help his mother. Next he joined the U.S. Air Force. He later and a professional entertainer around the time Dean married his first wife Mary Sue (Sue) in 1950. He had his first Top Ten hit on the Billboard Country charts in 1952 called “Bumming Around.” In 1954, Jimmy Dean became the host of radio program Town and Country Time on WARL in Washington D.C. Dean and his Texas Wildcats grew in popularity across the Mid-Atlantic region. Among the singers who got their start on the show were Patsy Cline, Roy Clark and Billy Grammar. He gained more fame with several more radio shows in Maryland and Virgina. In 1958-59 he was host of the Jimmy Dean Show on CBS. That show included a debut of a young puppeteer named Jim Henson who later created the Muppets.