Posted by Dermot Devitt on January 4, 2015, 7:07 am
When one is a Jim Reeves buff it is hard to get away from him - thank God ! Not least at Christmas time, to the musical culture of which the mellow baritone made such a telling contribution.
During five days of the Festive Season spent in Munich and environs I experienced what might be called 'Reeves moments', one good, one not so good.
The latter first: during an evening of polkas and pretzel etc in the Hosbanauf, the biggest beer hall in Bavaria, I happened to find myself seated next to a genial American lady. On telling me she was from Nashville, Tn I enquired which part. -Oh, you probably never heard of it - Brentwood-Franklin direction. On telling her I most certainly had heard of it, as the greatest ever minstrel of Music City, USA had died there in a plane crash, this drew a blank. After a few puzzled moments' thought, she replied: 'Do you mean ...Dotty West ?'. It is only fair to say the lady was still only in her 40s or thereabouts, but that doesn't prevent folk from hearing of Ella Fiztgerald or Bing Crosby.
Another day, Christmas Eve, I found myself on the small local train which connects Music City, Austria,Salzburg, home of Mozart and the Sound of Music, for the short trip down to the small village of Oberndorf.
There I encountered a visitor from Pretoria, South Africa in the large international crowd gathered outside the site of the church where 'Silent Night' was first sung, in 1818. A cheerful gentleman, approaching 70 at a guess. Naturally, in an effort to retrieve some lost ground, I discreetly broached the topic of Gentleman Jim
His face immediately lit up. 'You'd never guess it, but before I left home to come on this trip I was looking through my old collection of vinyl LPs and came across my Jim Reeves one. It brought back happy memories of the time I saw him live in my home town !'
You lose some, you win some. May One Five be a year in which the memory of Gentleman Jim will continue to thrive !
Re: Christmas
Posted by Gary Bryson on January 4, 2015, 11:46 am, in reply to "Christmas "
Thanks for the stories. I am not surprised by the woman from Nashville. I would say that most people under fifty have never heard of Jim. Even those from Nashville.
As for the gentleman from Pretoria, surprising that he only had one Jim Reeves album if he was such a fan. Most Jim Reeves admirers I know have as many of Jim's albums as they could collect. But maybe his records were not as widely available there as they have been here.
Re: Christmas
Posted by Larry Jordan on January 4, 2015, 2:43 pm, in reply to "Re: Christmas "
It's always such a pleasure to read anything Dermot writes. Which is not surprising, because he was the driving force behind a very successful play that was based on Jim Reeves' tour of Ireland, that garnered rave reviews there in recent years!
Jim's records disappeared from the stores about as fast as they could make them in his heyday, and Teal Records -- the RCA licensee there -- even resurrected (literally) some old equipment they had buried, to press vinyl LPs in a speed that the native populations with their crank victrola could play, so popular was he.
In recent years the availability of his music there has waned, most recently compounded by a long-running postal strike which has gone on and on and prevented a lot of our customers in South Africa from securing copies of his latest releases. Some are so desperate to get the new 8 CD set, "The Great Jim Reeves," they are offering to pay steep charges for FEDEX delivery.
Don't forget that this 8 CD set is the best thing released on Jim since Bear's boxed set years ago, as there are 170+ tracks, including 92 overdubs featuring over 30 musicians, background singers, engineers, et al and every track has been remastered to bring out the beauty of his incredible voice. There's also a 48 page full color booklet which my daughter, Sara and I wrote, that talks about each song.
Hear audio samples and place your order at the link below.