Link: Jim Ed Brown dies
The Nashville Tennessean newspaper ran a story (which I have linked to below) which OF COURSE does not mention Jim Reeves, or the influence Reeves had on Jim Ed's style of singing. The Browns accompanied Jim on the String Music tours of Fabor Robison for Abbott records, and Mr. Reeves was certain that if something were to happen to him, RCA would try to groom Jim Ed as his replacement.
Subsequent to Reeves' death Jim Ed even called up JR's secretary and said he hoped he didn't sound too much like Gentleman Jim. She replied, "don't worry, you don't."
As I have reported on the Fan Forum over the years, Jim Ed Brown was a business partner of Ed Gregory, the convicted bank fraud felon who ripped off five Alabama banks but somehow managed to stay out of prison. He operated a carnival business and ripped off Mary Reeves when she became ill and the Jim Reeves estate was sold to United Shows of America, Ed's company.
Jim Ed Brown was part of that whole deal, and my husband Larry Jordan has written about Jim Ed's role in the destruction of the Reeves estate in his 672-page book, "Jim Reeves: His Untold Story."
So while the tributes are paid, and rightly so, to the contributions Jim Ed made to the music industry, it must also be remembered that he had a hand in the destruction of Jim Reeves' legacy too. He knew full well Mary had worked for years to preserve all the artifacts of her late singer husband, and that Reeves himself had been a packrat and saved everything for an eventual museum. The notion that Mary would willingly turn all of this over to a carney, to dispose of as he did -- auctioning it off to the highest bidder, and then screwing her out of millions of dollars as she lay ill in a nursing home (then filing bankruptcy with over $30 million in creditors) -- is frankly implausible.
Read the Tennessean story on Jim Ed Brown's passing by clicking the link below. -- JULIE
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