In comparing notes over the months, we discovered that there were some people lying to us about each other and I believe that was designed to foster misunderstandings. Once we cleared the air we found we were on the same page basically, and of course he and I were both on the BBC twice talking about his uncle Jim.
I appreciate his straight-forwardness and candor about subjects of mutual interest, and completely agree with his assessment of various situations.
In my opinion, what's happened to the Reeves estate is a terrible tragedy as it was badly mishandled by a vengeful, vituperative individual who was so short sighted it has basically wiped out the estate and only enriched the lawyers. Just because she couldn't get her hands on Jim's memorabilia, his niece "pursued justice" and somehow got Mary's estate to pay for it! (I still don't understand how that happened). But she stood idly by while that memorabilia was scattered to the winds. If she couldn't have it, she apparently wanted it to be destroyed -- which she fully knew would be the net result of it being so widely dispersed and the more important items falling into the hands of the hoarders.
(However, by virtue of my personally spending tens of thousands of dollars, I was able to rescue scores of previously unreleased recordings, which I have proceeded to issue on CD and share with the fans. The reason I am the target of a handful of sick minded individuals is they greedily wanted to lay claim to this material and lock it all up for bragging rights, and they hate me because I have made it available to the fans).
I still feel the sale of the Reeves estate to Ed Gregory needed to be challenged. Everything about this transaction stunk to high heaven. Tom Perryman, whom a Holland webmaster has so ignorantly embraced for so many years, is the one who bragged to me personally that he put the deal together with Ed Gregory, and claimed "it was the best thing to happen to Jim and Mary in many years." But Tom was just afraid he was going to be cut out of the deal. He'd hitched his wagon to Reeves years earlier. Other webmasters and people who write liner notes for Abbott retreads may be gullible enough to believe Perryman's stories, but anyone who truly knows this guy takes him with a giant grain of salt, and is aware of the role he played in the destruction of the Reeves estate.
Even though I believe the initial litigation was warranted in challenging the sale of the Reeves estate, I feel that a settlement with Terry Davis could have been accomplished years ago before all the protracted court battles and legal fees. Basically all that's been accomplished is Mary will be moved to Carthage...EVENTUALLY.
Realistically speaking, what's left of the Reeves estate? Much of his catalog has fallen into public domain, plus Jim's legacy has been drastically harmed by all the discord. In retrospect, I believe John Rex was wise to stay out of it, once a losing legal course was charted. He has quietly pursued his own career and pays tribute to his uncle Jim by touring literally around the world.
The irony is that he was much closer to his uncle Jim (by virtue of being older) than his noise-making younger cousin, who was very young when Jim Reeves died and couldn't converse with you intelligently about any aspect of his repertoire because as of a few years ago at least, she owned none of it. Visitors to her home were shocked she didn't have a single Reeves recording.
And let the record show that despite the Rev. Bill White's shameless self-promotion as Jim's "nephew," (which he stopped being when his aunt remarried in 1969), the only TRUE nephew -- blood relative -- of Jim Reeves who is pursuing a singing career is John Rex Reeves. White relinquished his aunt's security interests by signing everything over to bank fraud felon Ed Gregory before he paid for it. That is a prosecutable action. People go to prison for lesser offenses. What ultimately happened is that -- as a direct and FORESEEABLE consequence of White's actions -- Gregory then proceeded to rip off Mary and other creditors for tens of millions of dollars and then file bankruptcy. Had White bothered to investigate the background of Mr. and Mrs. Gregory, he would have known that both husband and wife had been CONVICTED on five counts of bank fraud, but received pardons from President Clinton after Ed put one of Hillary Clinton's brothers, Tony Rodham, on the payroll -- and then couldn't explain to Congress what Rodham did to earn that money. This according to The New York Times.
Much more could be said but I'll save that for the second edition of my book. By then more things will have taken place on the Reeves front.
As they say, "it ain't over until the fat lady sings."
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