1949


wedlock'd

Little Jimmy Dickens, Take a Cold Tater (and Wait).

Poor Little Jimmy. Whenever the preachers come to his house for Sunday dinner (which is all too often, it seems), his mother kicks him out of the dining room and gives him a cold potato to eat, while the preachers tear through all the chicken on the table, leaving just gristle and bones on the family's best china. "That's why I look so bad and have these puny ways," he says years later, to get a big laugh from the Grand Ole Opry crowd--Dickens was only 4' 10".

Dickens, the 13th son of a West Virginia farmer, and songwriter Eugene Bartlett, who mainly wrote gospel tunes and knew the appetite of preachers all too well, both had a well of experience to draw from for this song. Dickens was best known for novelty tunes, like "I'm a Plain Old Country Boy" and "May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose," but he was also a pretty fine singer of ballads and even dabbled in rockabilly during the '50s.

Recorded in Nashville on January 16, 1949, with Pete Kirby on steel guitar, Lonnie Wilson and Billy Byrd on guitars, and Jimmie Riddle on harmonica. You can find it on this collection.