If You Ain't Got No Cocaine, You Don't Party With Jim Dandy

Arkansas has a number of celebrities to its credit.  Mary Steenburgen, Billy Bob Thornton, Johnny Cash, Bill Clinton, and most recently Kris Allen have all left this state to get famous, some even came back. One man left to get famous but only out of necessity and he didn't go far, just to Tennessee.  Never one to forsake his home state he named his band Black Oak Arkansas, in honor of the town where the band was formed, and he was Jim Dandy.

According to Wikipedia Jim "Dandy" Mangrum started the band in 1965.  Their first PA system was stolen from a local high school, a crime for which they were charged with grand larceny in absentia and sentenced to 26 years in prison, a sentence which was later suspended. Apparently nobody had the heart to condemn the artists of such works as "Hot and Nasty" and "I Want a Woman with Big Titties" to 26 years among common criminals; after all, their crime was committed in the name of their art.

Black Oak Arkansas returned to Arkansas often for parties and concerts and once in a while, living here, you'll hear of friend's of friends and friend's parents and friend's of parent's friends who have been to those parties.  In their prime Black Oak Arkansas would rent out entire hotels and cocaine was the most prominent guest.  The father of a friend was at one of those parties.  Jim Dandy was in true form and as the place got over-crowded he ambled to the balcony of the hotel and yelled out to the crowd "if you ain't got no cocaine, you don't party with Jim Dandy" in that rough, deep voice and he enforced it.  The way it's told that stipulation didn't thin out the crowd too much.

I never really listened to Black Oak Arkansas, and this story is really all I know about Jim Dandy, that and what I read from Wikipedia, but as short as it is I thought I'd share it.  Come to think of it, it's not really a story at all, just something interesting one person tells to another, in person.  Maybe it was the way it was told that made it so good.  Sorry guys.