What’s Jimmy Dean, the singer and sausage maker, who died yesterday at the age of 81, got to do with Napa Valley?
Absolutely nothin’.
But as I had a personal connection with the singer-sausagemaker, for the sake of history, and accuracy, I need to share my story here.
(Dean is remembered for several things; certainly for his hit single, "Big Bad John," and for his TV program, "The Jimmy Dean Show," which was popular in the 1950s and early 60s. In later years, Dean became synonymous with the sausage company he started.)
In 1985, while working at Loblaws, Canada’s foremost supermarket chain, where I was responsible for the development of the line of premium-quality, President’s Choice products, I was asked to join a meeting with Jimmy Dean; one of our corporate senior vice presidents wanted to get the rights to make Jimmy Dean Sausage in Canada at a meat processing facility, which the supermarket chain owned, called Z&W.
Brian Davidson, the roly-poly, always chipper VP worked hard to get Jimmy D. to come to Toronto for the meeting. Brian was always a Big Picture Guy, buying and selling companies and brands to enhance the Loblaws portfolio. (In his time, Brian bought and sold Weight Watchers twice, he tried hard to buy Boboli, he opened the door to eventually buy Thomas’ English Muffins… and he SO wanted to own the Jimmy Dean Sausage brand for Canada. Hence the importance of the meeting he set up with Jimmy D.)
The meeting was held in the shag-carpeted, window-lined, eighth floor office of the President of Loblaw International Merchants, Dave Nichol, who was a tall, imperious leader, admired nationwide for his marketing bravado. (I suggested naming the line of upscale products we set out to produce “President’s Choice,” specifically because Dave was already so well known as the on-air presence for the supermarket.)
Present at the meeting: Brian, Dave, Jimmy Dean and me.
Brian walked Jimmy Dean into the room and I noted that the Texas singer was one of the few people I’ve ever met who was head’s taller than Nichol.
Jimmy Dean wore a ring that was larger than a Las Vegas poker chip, shaped like the state of Texas, stuffed with dozens of sparkly diamonds.
He mentioned that he had come the last little distance to Toronto in his large yacht, and that he was in a hurry to get back on his boat. This was the sum of our chitter-chatter pleasantries. We got down to business quickly. Nichol didn’t like idle chatter, and you could tell that Jimmy D. didn’t either.
The meeting got off on the wrong foot, you might say; Jimmy D. leaned back in his expensive black leather, swivel chair putting his cowboy boots smack square on Nichol’s ultra-clean, 12-foot-long, glass conference table. No one had ever offended Nichol in his private lair like this. I could sense his hackles rise. Jimmy D. picked up on Nichol’s cue but didn’t say a word.
Nichol started badgering Dean with a barrage of questions, the kinds of things he would ask of any potential supplier, but he delivered them with his rapier sword intellect, much as he had learned to do as a lawyer.
“What parts of the animal do you use for your sausage?”
“How much fat do your sausages contain?”
“Where did you get the recipe for your sausages?”
“What spices do you use?”
Dean answered the first few questions kindly, then started to answer the remainder almost belligerently. You could tell the meeting wasn’t going well. But I had no idea how not-well it was going until Nichol pushed the sausage king.
“How many employees do you have?”
“How many varieties do you make?”
“Where’s your primary factory located?”
This question was the proverbial last-straw for Dean, who was not used to being interrogated as though subpoenaed by the House on Un-American Activities.
“Where’s your primary factory located?” Nichol repeated.
“Noneya,” Jimmy Dean replied.
“Noneya, Texas?” Nichol queried, rhetorically asking where this might be.
“No. Noneya fuckin’ business!” Dean replied. And with that, he got up, stood straight and tall, making his exit to the door and then ducked out, and under, the door frame.
Jimmy Dean – gone, perhaps, but not forgotten.