Jim Reeves
July 31st is the 46th Death anniversary of one of my favourite singers. He was perhaps the first of many entertainers who died in a plane crash and he was just 40. In the fifties and the early sixties he strode the music scene like a colossus and was known by all and one as “Gentleman Jim”. I refer, of course, to Jim Reeves. I am not sure whether anybody listens to him nowadays, but I certainly do. Fortunately CDs of his songs are available and I wallow in nostalgia of an occasional evening when he brings back memories of so many girls who I thought I had loved and of heartbreaks that I had thought I had forgotten. Jim Reeves was a true blue Texan, born in a small village near the central Texan town of Carthage. He played semi professional baseball for a while before attempting to enter the world of music. Those were the days of crooners like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby and he was heavily influenced by them. The story goes that he got his break when the invited singer ...