Jimmy Dean's Arlington home
Dean got his broadcasting start in the 1950s at WARL radio which was across from what is now Virginia Hospital Center.
On August 10, 1928: Jimmy Dean, "the dandy of country music" and future Country Music Hall of Famer, was born in Texas. In 1954, he came to live in Arlington, where he spent most of the formative years of his musical career living in an unremarkable house at 1708 North Roosevelt Street in the county's East Falls Church neighborhood. There, he and his band, the Wildcats, practiced and he hung out at spots along Lee Highway before rocketing to worldwide fame.
Dean got his broadcasting start in the 1950s at WARL radio which was across from what is now Virginia Hospital Center, He appeared on WMAL-TV's "Town and Country Jamboree" five days a week where he was joined by country music celebrities like Eddy Arnold, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and "Hee Haw's" Grandpa Jones. His own show "Country Style" became the 1st nationally televised network non-news show to originate from D.C.
His North Roosevelt Street home was "the first home he ever owned." It was a one-story red-brick home with three-bedrooms and 2 ½-bath that he bought for $19,500 in 1954. In its carport, Dean would later recall, he would park his purple Oldsmobile 98 convertible with its two four-barrel carburetors. "Our whole band would rehearse in the basement," he told interviewers.
Dean formed ties to the community, working, for example, with the then Arlington Hospital to broadcast promotional messages. His quick rise to national fame and departure for New York City never diminished his love of Virginia.
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