Jun 09, 2009 04:46 PM
2636 Views
Jim is extremely popular even now in Europe(especially Norway, where English is not spoken), the U.K., Ireland, India, Pakistan, Ceylon(Sri Lanka) and South Africa. It is ironic that during his life time he did not achieve great popularity in the U.S.(perhaps a case of a prophet not being honored in his own country).
Jim began singing in the high pitched tone that is a familiar manner of singing in the Country genre. His friend and mentor Chet Atkins, the legendary guitarist asked him to sing two notches lower in bass/ baritone key closer to the microphone. It was good advice because Jim sounds so wonderful in the lower notches with an occasional soaring to the higher regions.
He was elected to the Country Music Hall of fame in 1967 three years after his death. It is the opinion of Country music critics that had Jim lived longer, he would have reformed the Country Music scene. He did not have many imitators who sang like he, because his voice is unique and inimitable. Al Grant(of Al Grant/ Isla Grant fame) has sung many Jim Reeves numbers. Though he is a good singer in his own right, he does not reach the heights of Jim. Jim possessed something extra in his voice.
Jim was always immaculately attired in suit while performing, unlike many other singers who are casual in their dress code. He looked more like a Professor than a Professional performer with his perfect diction( he had a very good spoken voice too).
Jim starred in a South African movie called KIMBERLEY JIM which has about 18 songs sung in English and Africaans, a Dutch dialect spoken in South Africa. Many in the U.S. found fault with Jim for going to South Africa at the height of the Apartheid period, but many forget that music has no politics. People in South Africa(whites and blacks) had invited him and when he arrived there with his band more than 6000 people had gathered to receive him. The film was immensely popular for its songs. South Africa was one country where in the 1970s(years after Jim’s death) 78 rpm gramophone records were still being manufactured for the Bush people who did not have electricity but had Victrolas(the original HMV gramophones to play Jim Reeves’ 78 rpm records!
Many of his records were released after his death. His wife, Mary Reeves was a shrewd business woman and she released his unreleased songs in instalments, mixing them with the already released ones for decades till her death in 1999.
Had Jim lived now he would have been 84, not a very old age for Americans. His friend and contemporary singer Eddie Arnold is still around and so is George Beverley Shea who is 99. His fans say that perhaps God wanted him up there to sing for him and that is why he remembered him early. His voice is a once in a life time voice that is not found in any other singer. That suave, rich, graceful and dignified voice of a crooner who did not look like one fills one with joy, peace, gladness, contentment and immense grace. Jim in my opinion is to music what Shakespeare was to Literature.
