However -- one point I want to address and that concerns your denigration of "liberals." I am one. And yet I wrote the 672-page, award-winning book, "Jim Reeves: His Untold Story."
So I don't think being "liberal" had anything to do with Ken Burns apparently not including Jim in his documentary. After all, "liberal" generally means open-minded as most definitions of conservative encompass being traditional and not open to new thoughts or experiences.
Anyway, one important factor here is that Michael Streissguth, who produced the trash book on Jim some years ago, brags that he has served as a consultant to Mr. Burns since 2013. It would not be beyond the realm of possibility that he influenced the Burns people to NOT include Jim, since he is highly jealous of Reeves' contributions to country music as Streissguth is hung up on Eddy Arnold. Eddy had no Number One hits after Jim arrived in Nashville, and stole "Make the World Go Away" even though both he and Chet Atkins knew that it had been planned that RCA would release that song as a single from Jim's posthumous 1965 album. I know, because Mary Reeves personally told me about how betrayed she felt. Of course, Eddy also tried to copy everything about Jim, including his manner of dress, even recorded an original Christmas song that had been present to Jim by a good friend of his in England, and that Reeves had planned to do at his next session, and also tried to duplicate Jim's success in South Africa by recording music for that market. He failed.
At this point we don't know for sure that Jim is not mentioned in the documentary, but if he is, it seems odd that he does not appear in the half-hour promo, nor are any of his tracks in that accompanying CD set.
Mary and I used to talk about how Jim was constantly being overlooked and neither of us can understand why. At least the Academy of Country Music still acknowledges Jim's contribution because they still bestow an annual "Jim Reeves International" award to major country stars of today.
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