Patsy Cline rated a beautiful exhibit and celebration surrounding the anniversary of her passing last year, and deservedly so. But the Country Music Hall of Fame is doing nothing EXCEPT --
Apparently yielding to fan pressure, they have announced the following:
FILM LOOP: A SELECTION OF PERFORMANCES BY JIM REEVES
Thursday, July 31, 2014 - 09:00am
Jim Reeves stands as one of the most distinctive singers in the history of country music. His smooth, warm baritone was a major component of the sophisticated, pop-influenced Nashville Sound that emerged during the late 1950s and early 1960s and boosted country music to new commercial heights. He died in a plane crash on July 31, 1964, and was elected posthumously to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1967. This film loop contains performances of some of his classic songs including “Adios Amigo,” “Billy Bayou,” and “He’ll Have to Go.” 30 minutes. Takes place in the Museum’s Ford Theater.
PROGRAM ADMISSION: Museum admission or Museum membership required for program admittance.
But they are expanding their facilities and they keep growing all the time but the only thing people see of Jim's when they go there are a pair of ruby colored dress shoes, a red tux jacket and some cufflinks.
Surely they could have borrowed some stuff from Mike Curb, the well heeded businessman who owns Studio B, the Quonset Hut, and various other properties plus acquired the Newberry collection a few years ago. It went from being locked up in storage in California to locked up in storage in Nashville. As I have preached for years, inaccessibility is just another form of destruction. I have never understood the mentality of the people who obsessively and aggressively collect things and then lock them all away and deprive others from enjoying them. The irony is that these types of people don't even enjoy the artifacts themselves. Typically these things are in storage and doing nobody any good.
It is the height of narcissism, and selfishness, and not too far removed from the hoarding syndrome that afflicts people who have 200 cats in their house. Same dynamic at work.
The Country Music Hall of Fame has always been tainted by politics and many of the good people who have worked there in the past have left. Somehow they keep expanding.
But they long ago lost sight of their mission. Any facility devoted to country music that doesn't have DOTTIE WEST in it is not being run by people who are truly connected to the history of the music.
It's ironic that you mentioned the cufflinks and ruby red shoes because I have a snapshot of those from my first visit to the old hall of fame in 1974. I guess they probably dusted them off and put the same things out again. How lazy and negligent can they be.
I agree with John Walker.It is also pathetic they'd only come up with a half hour film and very little else.They've had plenty of time this past year to plan something much better than just this meager nearly half-hearted tribute.I suppose the families of Cline,Hawkins,Copas and Hughes did a better job of seeing that their relatives' memories were honored and preserved than did Jim Reeves' relatives.Anita L. Cooper