GENTLEMAN JIM REEVES PART 1. Review on Great Jim Reeves

GENTLEMAN JIM REEVES(PART 1)

JIM REEVES

James Travis Reeves, popularly known as Jim Reeves was born in 1925 in Galloway, near Carthage, Texas. He was a household name in the field of Country Music. Known by different monikers – Gentleman Jim(due to his immaculate attire and the moral element in many of his songs), King Jim and Big Jim(in South Africa because of his height – 6 feet 1 inch and big frame) he excelled in any genre you can name, be it gospel, country, Spirituals, love songs, sentimental numbers, ballads and even good old fashioned Jazz. He became famous for what was called “the Nashville Sound” a kind of rendering perfected by him – a warm baritone, silky, smooth velvety voice which no other singer has been able to copy in the musical scene.

Jim wanted to be a baseball player, a game he was good at. However, fortunately for us an injury forced him out and he had to pick up a guitar and return to the music scene. Jim the baseball player, had he succeeded as a sportsman would have been forgotten but Jim the crooner lives in the hearts of all of us 45 years after his death.

I started listening to his songs from 1956 at the age of 9. My school teacher Mr. Ralph Mitchell used to sing his numbers. In 1964 while listening to a favorite program in Radio Ceylon(as Radio Sri Lanka was called then) the announcer interrupted the program to announce his death. I was shell shocked. Then the announcer played “I’LL FLY AWAY”( one of his spirituals). Jim flew away. He died when his own private single engine plane crashed in Williamson County, Tennessee on July 31st, 1964.

He began singing in 1945 forming a few bands and working as a disc jockey. It was in 1952 he got his break. A singer(perhaps Hank Williams) failed to turn up for a performance on the “Lousiana Hayride and some one had to fill in. Jim presented his new song MEXICAN JOE and he was an instant success. Contracts came his way and he was on his way to musical success purely by his own merits.

I have collected more than 400 of his songs over more than 35 years and put them all on MP3s for my private listening pleasure.

Some of my favorites are:

He will have to go, Rosario, Bimbo, Not until the next time, I love you because, Nickel piece of Candy, In the misty moonlight, Danny Boy, Distant Drums, Welcome to my world