Rhythm guitarist Velma Smith passe away yesterday on the 50th anniversary of Jim's death. She played on a lot of Jim's RCA recordings.

Velma's obituary

http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Velma-Smith&lc=4880&pid=171928420&mid=6068356

Velma Smith was an important part of a lot of Jim Reeves' songs. In my book, "Jim Reeves: His Untold Story," she tells the amusing story of Jim's reaction when she showed up to play for the first time on one of his sessions. It was very much a male-dominated world in Nashville, and still is.

Though a bit chauvinistic, Reeves was willing to give her a chance, and after the first run through of a song he came over to her and kissed her and let her know he thought they'd get along just fine. She told him to let her know if she was playing something he didn't like, and I think this reassured Jim that she was a team player and eager to please. He liked it when a musician was willing to "give their all."

Jim often used Velma to play rhythm guitar and she can be seen in the Studio B footage released on "The Great Jim Reeves Anthology" DVD 2014 edition that is available at the link below. (The DVD contains 30 LIVE performances by Jim...NO lip sync, and is available in an all-region format so you can view it anywhere).

Besides Reeves, Velma played on the sessions of a Who's Who of Nashville stars. I really liked her; she was blunt and derided Gordon Stoker's comments about Jim being like "an old maid school teacher" -- remarks he made on TAPE when he talked to me, but later denied when confronted about them. Velma told me exactly what she thought of Mr. Stoker.

How ironic that one of JIm Reeves' most important musical colleagues would leave this world on the same day 50 years after he left it.

I always admired Velma Smith. She must have been very good at playing rhythm guitar to get to record in such distinguished company.

I thought the cameraman dwelled on her too long in that video because I wanted to see Jim more.He must have been impressed there was such a talented woman guitarist there.RIP,Ms. Smith.Yes that's quite a synchronicity that she'd pass away exactly half a century after Jim.

Yes, Anita, but we have to remember that when this film was made, no one had any idea that Jim wouldn't be around much longer. If we could know these things, then I'm sure most of us would do a lot of things differently. I do agree with you though that it would be great if we had more footage of Jim in the studio doing what he did best. Cheers!