Posted by Larry Jordan on August 5, 2015, 10:41 am
I wondered how long it would take for the jealousy to surface on the Holland website that still displays Leo Jackson's picture as a banner across the top despite the fact that his twice-bereaved widow has repeatedly asked that the webmaster, Mr. Den Dulk, REMOVE her late husband's picture from his website because, she affirms, Leo grew tired of receiving phone calls from the man and even excoriated her for handing the phone to him when Leo actually wanted to AVOID having to deal with the Holland guy's calls. Remember, this is the same webmaster who, after Leo killed himself, sent Nell Jackson a horribly scathing letter bragging he knew ahead of time that Leo was going to commit suicide, flaunted what he alleged were Leo's infidelities (but taunted her he was not going to share these secrets with her), and then went on to proclaim that the dear woman had disgraced herself in the eyes of the fans.
(A sidenote: Leo Jackson, Jr., who recently followed in his father's footsteps and shot himself to death, tragically so, was SO very upset about Den Dulk's actions that it's a very good thing the Holland creep never visited Nashville or he may have ended up a statistic. Leo Jr. told me himself, and his mother also confirmed, that he was infuriated by the way Nell had been abused by the poison-penned Holland webmaster in her hour of grief).
It's been pretty quiet over on the eastern front as various of my CD projects have scored huge sales rankings, not only on Jim but other artists as well. Frankly, I seldom look at that site any more because it's inane "Did you know?" feature is so laughably trivial and the whole site has been so irrelevant for years, that the only time I waste a minute to visit that flesh-colored home page with the hideous design is if somebody sends me an email pointing out some new affront posted there. And even then I often just ignore it. YAWN!
In an attempt to discredit the recently-released CD, "Jim Reeves: The New Gospel Recordings," which climbed up to one step from the top on the Amazon best-seller Southern Gospel chart less than 48 hours after its release, the Holland webmaster (or his UK ex-fan club ghostwriter; watch those British spellings boys, they're a dead giveaway as to who's really writing that garbage!) points out that an old BMG gospel release on Reeves ranked #16 Southern Gospel, #30 Country & Bluegrass and #79 Gospel.
He then notes that the CD I released was, at that moment, ranking lower in sales. His conclusion: "What does that tell you? It says that these original recordings are more favoured by the record buying public than any new ones. But I guess many of us knew that already."
Since these boys admit that "these charts are updated every hour," applying the same logic, I wonder why they didn't write something along the lines of "'Jim Reeves: The New Gospel Recordings" has soared to #2 in Southern Gospel, #9 in Country & Bluegrass and #15 in Gospel, proving that fans LOVE to hear Jim's old standards updated with new musical arrangements and superb remastering, plus they enjoy having PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED studio outtakes and other new material"?????
I guess we know why this wasn't noted: because they are always looking for an excuse to belittle my projects in any way they can, since they have never achieved anything even remotely comparable.
World famous singers Daniel O'Donnell and Mary Duff are even appearing in TV commercials to promote the 8-CD set I produced called "The Great Jim Reeves" (see this at: http://www.greatjimreeves.com. Den Dulk and Bussey never put out anything like that. But I did.
It's pathetic that some grown men are so insecure about themselves and their own lack of achievements that they grasp at straws to try to tear down others.
To compare a new release by an indie label to a CD that has received widespread marketing support from one of the world's largest labels for years and is deeply engrained in the public's consciousness, can only result in the conclusion that the new CD is performing astonishingly well given the context! But they can't be happy that Jim's gospel recordings are attracting media attention worldwide and getting him new airplay on stations around the globe!
That's because at heart they care less about Jim Reeves than they do their own egos. And that, fans, is the sad truth.
"Jim Reeves: The New Gospel Recordings" is like every other CD on Amazon; it goes up and down like a yo-yo, but the trend (as charted by Amazon) is impressively strong. The first run of copies is nearly sold out; in fact, more were re-ordered just this morning. The tidal wave of sales will once again engulf that stale old BMG release that offers nothing new, and has a sound quality that doesn't even come close to matching the superb new CD.
And boys, if the sales performance of this new Jim gospel CD upsets you so much, it's a good thing you don't know how well other releases I've produced have done. You'd be crying yourselves to sleep every night.
Bye bye!
(Below is a screen capture from last week for the sales ranking of "Jim Reeves: The New Gospel Recordings." To order your copy before it's sold out. click the link below.
Tsk tsk. Such a shame. The entire premise that Den Dulk/Bussey advanced in their attack on the new CD, "Jim Reeves: The New Gospel Recordings" -- that it wasn't as popular as the originals -- has already crumbled.
They had compared a BMG/Sony CD called "Jim Reeves 20 Gospel Favorites" to the newly released CD I produced, and claimed the other one was way ahead of our new one.
But take a look at the overall rankings as of 5:30 p.m. Central time Wednesday...mere hours after they posted their specious claim. Also notice the actual SALES GAP. Our new CD ranks 1,037 HIGHER in overall sales than the BMG/Sony release.
Take a look at the side by side comparison of the rankings. "New Gospel" is on the left and ranks #8 in Southern Gospel as compared to "20 Favorites" ranking #11; and our new CD ranks #12 in the "Country & Bluegrass" music category with "20 Favorites" coming in at #16.
What say now boys?
See how silly this is? For a newly launched CD, which has had very little exposure and NO promotional budget, to compete with a big league release that has an iconic photo of Jim on the cover (albeit, REVERSED to try to fool fans into thinking it's fresh), is really impressive, wouldn't you say?