Posted by Larry Jordan on November 24, 2013, 11:07 pm Edited by board administrator November 24, 2013, 11:54 pm
More school yard prattle prattle from David Bussey accusing Julie and me of spreading "malicious gossip" about him "for the past couple of years" that he "had a secret life as a thief." He claims our sources are “the great California collector and the great UK fan.” If he's so sure of that, why didn't he name them?
Bussey warns that I need to “tread very warily…before lawyers are once again chasing” me. A few months ago, it may be recalled, Arie Den Dulk, (webmaster of a so-called Jim Reeves fan site), recklessly published on his website Mr. Bussey's fatuous claim that I had illegally recorded him after I'd posted excerpts online from interviews with Bussey I had taped for my book, in which he had implored me to print salacious stories about Jim, then repeatedly took me to task — including in magazine articles published in the UK — chastising me for supposedly destroying Jim's image. But Mr. Bussey knew he was being taped so I could assure accurate quotation. He was simply embarrassed to be revealed as a hypocrite.
Now Mr. Bussey claims the only reason I wasn't sued by him is because “no one knew the defendant's current abode.”
Once again writing in the third person about himself, Mr. Bussey declares boldly that “Mr. Bussey will never be bullied into submission by a 'Johnny come lately' without any proof of Reeves pedigree, who set up shop 15 years ago to market his wares, and who has never since paid anyone the slightest compliment on the work done on the promotion of Jim Reeves music this side of the water over the past 50 years, but oh so quick to laud & magnify his own efforts.”
I'm wondering if there was some deadline by which someone could become a Reeves fan without being called a “Johnny come lately”? I've loved Jim's music for the past 52 or more years and my friendship with Mary extended for 21 years beyond when she stopped talking to Mr. Bussey. You can go to my blog and listen to a tape of one of my candid conversations with Mary Reeves, affirming a degree of intimacy and trust between us that I doubt she shared with David Bussey.
As for "magnifying" my own efforts: Just how many new songs have Messrs. Bussey or Den Dulk dug up on Jim, overdubbed and released for the fans to enjoy? Where is the book Bussey told people for years he was going to write on Reeves?
The fact is I did, indeed, give credit in my book to British fans (including pirate radio) — it's just that I didn't focus my attentions on David. And therein lies the rub.
Only after he started attacking me did I point out online that Mary Reeves withdrew her support for his fan club in 1977 (a fact which he himself wrote about at the time by complaining that she had failed to respond to his various entreaties to her, including those made on his behalf by other fans who spoke to her personally. But she wisely refused to respond to him. I should probably take a cue from her on this).
Jim's fans from all over the world write to me at the same address I've been at for over 18 years: P.O. Box 685, Panora, Iowa 50216 USA. I look forward to receiving the lawsuit from Mr. Bussey and I will dispose of it — if it ever comes — in the same manner I did when two other people on the Reeves fan scene were foolhardy enough to put my name gratuitously on lawsuits. I've been threatened by better men than him and I don't suffer fools gladly.
It's a sad spectacle when a man who made laudable efforts to promote Jim Reeves to British fans, as Mr. Bussey clearly has done decades ago, feels compelled to obsessively press these shrill and laughably absurd attacks. At 672 pages, my book had reached press capacity and in my final chapter I did not even have space to write about my own wife's website or my personal efforts to track down unreleased recordings by Jim and share them with the fans. There were others who have worked tirelessly to perpetuate Jim Reeves' musical legacy and I didn't have room to write about them either. So he shouldn't feel slighted.
There's one bit of good news: David Bussey promises to leave the Reeves fan scene again on the 50th anniversary next year and says he “only came back two years ago to fight his corner against the book which re-wrote the Jim Reeves legend." What a revealing comment. David is still hung up on perpetuating the Reeves LEGEND. I am only interested in promoting FACTS.
As I type this I am listening to Anne Murray's gorgeous and meaningful Christmas album and looking forward to our family's plans for the holidays. I wish Mr. Bussey “peace on earth, good will toward men”...
Larry, in your dealings with Mr.Bussey and all the people you interviewed for your book, you've played fair with them from the beginning. And your book sure didn't do anything to ruin Jim's image at all. Each page accurately and honestly paints the life of Jim Reeves exactly as the man he was. For me, that's what a biography on a person's life should be. If your book never made one mention of Jim's flaws, I actually would have been quite dissapointed, because Jim had flaws like the rest of us. I believe from everything you've said and from listening to your taped interviews with Mr. Bussey, that he and anyone else that was interviewed for your book knew very well beforehand what you intended to say, and that you did so with their blessings. Why any of these people would change their tune after the fact just baffles me. I've seen and read so many biographies that were either inaccurate, had glaring ommissions or were just filled with lies, but your book on Jim lived up to everything I could have hoped for in a biography on Jim and more. I hope that someday soon we will see updated editions with more great stories on Jim added to an already wonderful book! Just to let you know once again that us fans who appreciate what you've done with your book and all the great CD's are behind you all the way! I hope that you and Julie and your daughter all have a wonderful Thansgiving and a great holiday season!
Referring to himself in 3rd person so much is rather disturbing. According to Elsa Ronningstam, associate clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and author of Identifying and Understanding the Narcissistic Personality: Referring to yourself in the third person creates distance between "I" and "he." So if you have an exaggerated view of how great you are, you could be using this distance to make yourself even bigger.
I for one am so glad I found this website some years ago. The CD's and songs of JR, and the book, which I would never have come across but for it are a continual source of pleasure to me.
However, as a proud Brit, and for me there is no other greater nation with its history, traditions, culture and worldwide legacy, I must gently take issue with your linking of some negative press with 'British style'. Please remember he doesn't speak for all of us.
I look forward to keeping in touch with this site, and hopefully more JR output should it become available.
Martin, I'm properly chastised. Of course, I didn't mean to imply that the eccentric David Bussey behaves the way most Brits do!
His recent posting of a 1977 full page article which appeared in the "Country Music Round Up" newspaper, in which he droned on and on about the demise of his fan club, was a true embarrassment. In it, he claimed that "since my announcement regarding the closure of the club, I have had SEVERAL HUNDRED letters from members BEGGING ME TO CHANGE MY MIND" (emphasis mine).
Then Mr. Bussey, in his article, went on to take a series of cheap shots at Mary Reeves, saying her policy of overdubbing Jim's old tracks (which, incidentally, helped Reeves get airplay and perpetuated his legacy with 34 charted hits after his death, the only artist in the history of recorded music to achieve this), "is frowned upon by most of the older fans who feel they are being taken for a ride." Bussey disparaged Mary for "appealing to a new generation of Reeves fans." He further claimed that "Many fans feel that by pursuing this present policy, Mary is turning her back on them... Mary owes a lot to the loyalty of the fans."
Gee, is it any wonder it took Mary TWO AND A HALF YEARS to finally write Mr. Bussey -- and even then she never acknowledged the demise of Mr. Bussey's fan club? He proudly posted a brief, pro forma letter from her, but it's obvious what she really thought of him and his club.
And as I've said before, the full story behind this has not been publicly told.
A similarly absurd post by Mr. Bussey was a letter from a friend of his, John Merritt of Sunbury Music, who commiserated with him about the closure of the Bussey-run Reeves fan club. Mr. Merritt wrote "I am sure that it has left you very disappointed that Mary saw fit not to write to you after all the work you did for the Fan Club but as you well know she is not the sort of person who is given to writing letters." Say WHAT?
Tell that to the women who worked as Mary's secretaries, who literally typed THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of letters to fans. Mary was a lugubrious correspondent and followed Jim's philosophy that everyone who wrote her deserved a reply. The first letter I ever got from her -- which ran a full page from top to bottom and even went off into the margins -- she typed herself. (I received it back on Sept. 12, 1966 and it was the start of our 33 year friendship. I was at that time only 13).
Incidentally, Mary was also known to send scores of fans handwritten letters and she did this right up to the end.
This same Mr. Merritt also advised Bussey in 1977 that "there is absolutely no unreleased product and the future Reeves material will only be the old recordings with newly added arrangements."
I think over the past 11 years, VoiceMasters and I have rather convincingly proven the fallacy of THAT statement.
So be assured Martin, I do not impute such craziness to all of your fellow Brits, but there's another looney or two running around in Europe who behaves with a similar self-absorption and never does anything constructive to perpetuate Jim Reeves' legacy. They just attack those of us who DO...
Larry, I can certainly back you up on what you said about Mary. Back in the '80's, I received a few letters from her myself. I also spoke to her on the phone a few times. In fact, the second time I called her, she even remembered my full name, which I thought was very nice. One time, I ordered a copy of the "A Touch Of Velvet" LP that she had for sale in the Jim Reeves Museum gift shop. As it turned out, there were no more copies available when she received my order, but she ended up sending me one of her own personal copies of the LP so I wouldn't be dissapointed. She sent a very nice letter along with the album and I still have them both. From what I've experienced with Mary, I would say she really appreciated Jim's fans and treated them kindly.
I have just finished reading Mr. Bussey’s tomes on the life and death of the British fanclub. I’m not writing to denigrate the British fanclub. No doubt Mr. Bussey poured his blood and sweat into it; however, it is obvious, since Mary NEVER acknowledged the disbandment of the club, that she no longer had much interest in it. Plus, the next time Mary wrote to Mr. Bussey was two and a half years after the disbandment. Furthermore, her letter didn’t even mention the British fanclub. She was only commenting on an article Mr. Bussey wrote for “Country Music People”.
I am really puzzled by a comment Mr. Bussey made: “The beloved American author & wife have been speading (Mr. Bussey’s spelling, not mine) malicious gossip for the past couple of years … that Mr. Bussey (oh dear, talking about himself in 3rd person again) had a secret life as a thief.” Since I had no idea what that was about, I looked at all the pertinent postings on The Jim Reeves Way and I see 0 instances where Larry or Julie accused Mr. Bussey of being a thief. So, it is interesting that he would put that in print, which will surely only serve to put the idea in people’s heads that he may have been involved in some shady activity. Very puzzling!
I am a magazine publisher by profession and have been involved in journalism since I was 15. I also produce a weekly radio show heard on 52 stations across 10 states, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary on the air this Christmas. And of course Julie and I have been very public with our websites for years.
I'm not at all bothered by differences of opinion. I've routinely received both favorable and unfavorable feedback regarding my various endeavors for years.
Fans are free to like or dislike my book or the music I produce. But it is pretty hard to sit idly by and watch someone continually lie about you or distort the facts about Jim Reeves, when I have spent thousands of hours researching and writing a massive tome about his life. As I wrote in my Foreword, I make no pretense of infallibility. But so far not much has surfaced to contradict anything I published.
What amazes me is the total obliviousness that some of these individuals have toward how it makes them look when they repeatedly, obsessively attack the book or me, only to have their arguments crumble into dust time after time when I post proof of the truth. And yet the Holland webmaster NEVER POSTS RETRACTIONS. EVER. Even when the facts are laid out for him and he is once again embarrassed by his errors. He just leaves the same misinformation online to be discovered by unsuspecting fans who don't know any better and may stumble across his site. And after writing Leo Jackson's widow a horrific and hurtful letter right after her husband's tragic death, (claiming he knew that Leo was going to take his own life), Mr. Den Dulk still leaves the banner on the top of his page with Leo's picture on it, despite repeated requests from widow Nell Jackson that he remove it. What kind of "man" would ignore the pleadings of a woman who lost her husband under such terrible circumstances? An INSENSITIVE one, that's for sure.
That's why I have never believed he was truly a Jim Reeves fan, because if he were, the truth would be important to him, and it obviously is NOT.
Both he and his UK ex-fan club buddy Mr. Bussey have repeatedly complained for many years about Mary Reeves' alleged mistreatment of them, and done so by attacking the woman in public print while she was alive and after she was gone. Even to this day they can't figure out why Mary turned her back on them. This reflects a narcissism and lack of self awareness that borders on the pathological.
As I've said before, I think there are some emotionally disturbed people out there who masquerade as Jim Reeves fans but over time have repeatedly harmed his legacy by spreading misinformation or by trying to undermine the work that some of us do.