Thirty years of sausage, fifty years of ham : Jimmy Dean's own stories

"Abandoned by his father and raised by his mother during the Depression, Jimmy Dean learned early the values of hard work and faith. But no one could have imagined how far those values - and the saving grace of country music - would take the poor young man from Plainview, Texas." "Now, Jimmy Dean and his wife, Donna, chronicle his rise - from backroad music gigs to playing the Grand Ole Opry to headlining Carnegie Hall and the London Palladium to his own TV show to his Grammy Award win. But even after his success as a country singer, Jimmy's life was to take another turn - as his investment in the Jimmy Dean Meat Company evolved into a phenomenal business success and an American tradition." "Journeying from the Lone Star State to the nation's capital, from Nashville to New York - with plenty of adventurous detours along the way - this is a portrait of the legends who crossed Jimmy's path. But it's also Dean's story of the multimillion-dollar venture that made him a household name, the home-grown values that made his business endure and thrive over the years."--BOOK JACKET.