James Travis Reeves (August 20, 1923July 31, 1964) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. One of the earliest pioneers and practitioners of the Nashville sound, he played a central role in the sonic development of country music in the 1960s. Known as "Gentleman Jim", his songs continued to chart for years after his death in a plane crash. He is a member of both the Country Music and Texas Country Music Halls of Fame.
Biography
Early life and education James Travis Reeves was born on August 20, 1923, at his family home in Galloway, Texas, a small rural community near Carthage. The youngest of eight children of Thomas Middleton Reeves (1882-1924) and Mary Beulah Adams Reeves (1884-1980), he was known as Travis during his early years. He graduated from Carthage High School in 1942.
Reeves received an athletic scholarship to the University of Texas, where he enrolled to study speech and drama, but he left after six weeks to work in the Houston shipyards. He later returned to baseball, playing in semiprofessional leagues before signing in 1944 as a right-handed pitcher with a St. Louis Cardinals farm team. He spent three years in the minor leagues until a pitching injury severed his sciatic nerve, ending his athletic career.Jordan, Larry, Jim Reeves: His Untold Story, Page Turner Books International, 2011, pp. 58–59.
Early career Reeves' initial efforts to pursue a baseball career were sporadic, possibly due to his uncertainty as to whether he would be drafted into the military, as World War II enveloped the United States. On March 9, 1943, he reported to the Army Induction Center in Tyler, Texas, for his preliminary physical examination. He failed the exam (probably due to a heart irregularity), though, and on 4 August 1943, an official letter declared his 4-F draft status.Jim Reeves - His Untold Story p. 41 Reeves began to work as a radio announcer and sang live between songs. During the late 1940s, he was contracted with a couple of small Texas-based recording companies, but without success. Reeves at this point was influenced by early country and western swing artists, including Jimmie Rodgers and Moon Mullican, as well as popular singers Bing Crosby, Eddy Arnold, and Frank Sinatra. In the late 1940s, Reeves joined Moon Mullican's band, and as a solo artist, Reeves recorded Mullican-style songs, including "Each Beat of my Heart" and "My Heart's Like a Welcome Mat" in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
During these years, Reeves took a job as an announcer for KWKH-AM in Shreveport, Louisiana, then the home of the popular radio program Louisiana Hayride. According to former Hayride master of ceremonies Frank Page, who had introduced Elvis Presley on the program in 1954, singer Sleepy LaBeef was late for a performance, and Reeves was asked to substitute. (Other accounts—including that of Reeves himself, in an interview on the RCA Victor album Yours Sincerely—name Hank Williams as the absentee.)
Initial success in the 1950s Jim Reeves was a country music singer who had success early on in his career, first with the song "Mexican Joe" in 1953 for Abbott Records. Other hits followed, such as "I Love You" (a duet with Ginny Wright), and "Bimbo", which reached number one on the U.S. country chart in 1954. In addition to those early hits, Reeves recorded many other songs for Fabor Records and Abbott Records. In 1954, Abbott Records released a 45 single with "Bimbo" on the A-side, which hit number one and featured Little Joe Hunt of the Arkansas Walk of Fame. Jim Reeves and Hunt had met at the Louisiana Hayride, which was Louisiana's equivalent to Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. After performing on the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, Reeves and Hunt traveled and performed together for several years in the dance halls and clubs of East Texas and rural Arkansas. Reeves became the headliner, with Hunt as the backup performer. Due to his growing popularity, Reeves went on to release his first album in November 1955, Jim Reeves Sings (Abbott 5001), which proved to be one of Abbott Records' few album releases. Reeves' star was on the rise because he had already been signed to a 10-year recording contract with RCA Victor by Steve Sholes, who went on to produce some of Reeves' first recordings at RCA Victor. Sholes signed another performer from the Louisiana Hayride that same year (1955), Elvis Presley. Most of the talented performers of the 1950s, such as Reeves, Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jim Ed Brown, Maxine Brown, the Wilburn Brothers, and Little Joe Hunt got their start on the Louisiana Hayride. In addition to there, Jim Reeves joined the Grand Ole Opry, also in 1955. Reeves also made his first appearance on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in 1955. He was such a hit with the fans that he was invited to act as fill-in host from May through July 1958 on that popular program.
From his earliest recordings with RCA Victor, Reeves relied on the loud, East Texas style, which was considered standard for country and western performers of that time, but he developed a new style of singing over the course of his career. He said, "One of these days.....I'm gonna sing like I want to sing!" So, he decreased his volume and used the lower registers of his singing voice, with his lips nearly touching the microphone. Amid protests from RCA, but with the endorsement of his producer Chet Atkins, Reeves used this new style in a 1957 recording, a demonstration song of lost love that had originally been intended for a female voice. It was titled "Four Walls", which not only scored number one on the country music chart, but also scored number 11 on the popular music chart. This recording marked his transition from novelty songs to serious country-pop music, and according to one source, "established Reeves as a country balladeer". "Four Walls" and "He'll Have to Go" (1959) defined Reeves' style.
Reeves was instrumental in creating a new style of country music that used violins and lusher background arrangements that soon became known as the Nashville Sound. This new sound was able to cross genres, which made Reeves even more popular as a recording artist.
Reeves became known as a crooner because of his light yet rich baritone voice. Because of his vocal style, he was also considered a talented artist because of his versatility in crossing the music charts. He appealed to audiences that were not necessarily country/western. His catalog of songs such as "Adios Amigo", "Welcome to My World", and "Am I Losing You?" demonstrated this appeal. Many of his Christmas songs have become perennial favorites, including "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S",First made famous nationally by Eddy Arnold in 1949. "Blue Christmas", and "An Old Christmas Card".
Between 1957 and 1958, Reeves was the host of a radio show on the ABC network. Debuting on October 7, 1957, the program was broadcast weekdays from 1:00 to 2:00 pm from Nashville, Tennessee. It featured the Anita Kerr Singers and Owen Bradley's orchestra. This was also when he began shifting from cowboy outfits to sports jackets.
Reeves is also responsible for popularizing many gospel songs, including "We Thank Thee", "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", "Across the Bridge", and "Where We'll Never Grow Old". He was given the nickname Gentleman Jim, an apt description of his character both on stage and off.
Early 1960s and international fame Reeves scored his greatest success with the Joe Allison composition "He'll Have to Go", a success on both the popular and country music charts, which earned him a platinum record. Released during late 1959, it scored number one on Billboard'''s Hot Country Songs chart on February 8, 1960, which it scored for 14 consecutive weeks. Country music historian Bill Malone noted that while it was in many ways a conventional country song, its arrangement and the vocal chorus "put this recording in the country-pop vein". In addition, Malone lauded Reeves' vocal styling—lowered to "its natural resonant level" to project the "caressing style that became famous"—as to why "many people refer to him as the singer with the velvet voice."Malone, Bill, Classic Country Music: A Smithsonian Collection (booklet included with Classic Country Music: A Smithsonian Collection 4-disc set). Smithsonian Institution, 1990, p. 51. In 1963, he released his Twelve Songs of Christmas album, which had the well-known songs "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S" and "An Old Christmas Card". During 1975, RCA Victor producer Chet Atkins told interviewer Wayne Forsythe, "Jim wanted to be a tenor, but I wanted him to be a baritone... I was right, of course. After he changed his voice to that smooth, deeper sound, he was immensely popular.""Gentleman Jim" by Wayne Forsythe, Country Song Roundup, August 1975
Reeves' international popularity during the 1960s, surpassing his popularity in the United States at times, helped to give country music a worldwide market for the first time. According to Billboard, "Reeves’ star shone equally bright overseas in the United Kingdom, India, Germany, and even South Africa. Jim Reeves was hugely popular in Sri Lanka in the 1960s and 1970s and presently he is the most popular English-language singer in Sri Lanka.
South Africa During the early 1960s, Reeves was more popular in South Africa than Elvis Presley, and he recorded several albums in the Afrikaans language. In 1963, he toured and starred in a South African film, Kimberley Jim. In the film, he sang part of one song in Afrikaans. The film was released with a special prologue and epilogue in South African cinemas after Reeves' death, praising him as a true friend of the country. The film was produced, directed, and written by Emil Nofal. Reeves later said that he enjoyed the film-making experience and would consider devoting more of his career to this medium. The film was released in South Africa (and also in the US) in 1965 after Reeves's death.
Reeves was one of an exclusive trio of performers to have released an album there that played at the little-used rpm speed. This unusual format was more suited to the spoken word and was quickly discontinued for music. The only other artists known to have released such albums in South Africa were Elvis Presley and Slim Whitman.
Britain and Ireland Reeves toured Britain and Ireland during 1963, between his tours of South Africa and continental Europe. Reeves and the Blue Boys were in Ireland from May 30 to June 19, 1963, with a tour of US military bases from June 10 to 15, when they returned to Ireland. They performed in most counties in Ireland, though Reeves occasionally abbreviated performances because he was unhappy with the available pianos at concert venues. In a June 6, 1963, interview with Spotlight magazine, Reeves expressed his concerns about the tour schedule and the condition of the pianos, but said he was pleased with the audiences.
A press reception for him at the Shannon Shamrock Inn was organized by Tom Monaghan of Bunratty Castle, County Clare. Showband singers Maisie McDaniel and Dermot O'Brien welcomed him on May 29, 1963. A photograph appeared in the Limerick Leader on June 1, 1963. Press coverage continued from May until Reeves' arrival with a photograph of the press reception in The Irish Press. Billboard magazine in the US also reported the tour before and after. The single "Welcome to My World" with the B-side "Juanita" was released by RCA Victor during June 1963 and bought by the distributors Irish Records Factors Ltd. This scored the record number one while Reeves was there during June.
A number of accounts of his dances were given in the local newspapers, with a good one in The Kilkenny People of his dance in the Mayfair Ballroom, where 1,700 people were present. A photograph in The Donegal Democrat had Reeves' singing in the Pavesi Ball Room on June 7, 1963, and an account of his nonappearance on stage in The Diamond, Kiltimagh, County Mayo in The Western People representing how the tour went in different areas.