Minnie Pearl Pins and Buttons

Minnie Pearl was country music’s premier comedienne for more than fifty years. The long-time Grand Ole Opry star delighted both rural and urban audiences with her down-home brand of humour. Throughout her entire career, the character known as ‘Minnie Pearl’ lived her private life, the epitome of middle-class southern womanhood, as Mrs. Henry Cannon, the wife of a successful Nashville businessman. She took her role of ‘Miss Minnie’ very seriously, working for hours to get the characterisation just right. Alongside her forty-year career on the Grand Ole Opry, she also appeared regularly on Hee Haw in a variety of comic skits, was one of the few country music acts to be featured on NBC’s This Is Your Life, and was a popular chat show guest.

Remembering Minnie Pearl's Chicken Restaurant. In the late 1960s Nashville entrepreneur John Jay Hooker persuaded Grand Ole Opry comedy star Minnie Pearl to lend her name to a chain of fried chicken restaurants established to compete with Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Who remembers Minnie Pearl's Chicken?

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Minnie Pearl's Chicken is a legendary case study of how not to run a restaurant franchising operation, and one that is still frequently referenced today. In the late 1960s, a Nashville entrepreneur persuaded Sarah Cannon, who performed as Minnie Pearl, to lend her name to a chain of fried chicken restaurants established to compete with top national chains. After initially reporting good results and enjoying public stock worth $64 million, the venture collapsed amid allegations of accounting irregularities and stock price manipulation. The company stated it had lost $5.5 million during the first half of 1969, but when the SEC investigated, it noted that the company had lost a whopping $31 million, leaving the stock to fall to just 44 cents.

The First Lady of Country Comedy, Minnie Pearl

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