Biography

Jim Reeves was one of the best of the "Nashville Sound" style country and western singers. His fame was widespread, not only in the USA, but also in Britain, India, Scandanavia and South Africa. Born in 1923 in Panola County, Texas, Jim after college began to pursue a professional baseball career but was sidelined by an injury to his leg while a pitcher with the Houston Buffaloes. He also for a brief period was a full-time radio announcer. He began his recording career in 1945, and also composed his own songs. The peak of his career came in late 1959-early 1960 with the success of the single "He'll Have To Go", which reached number 2 in the U.S. hit record charts and number 12 in Britain, ultimately reaching three million in sales. After his success he made successful tours of the U.S., Scandinavia and South Africa, where he starred in a film, Kimberley Jim (1963) (released in the U.S. in 1965) and recorded songs in the local Afrikaans language. Jim was well known as the singer with the velvet voice and the gentlemanly manner. Jim had been planning more tours and television appearances at the time his Beechcraft Debonair aircraft went down in bad weather on July 31, 1964. Federal and state officials found country music singer Jim Reeves in the charred wreckage of his small plane in a wooded area near Brentwood on Aug. 2, 1964 - taking the lives of Jim and his business manager and his piano player, Dean Manuel, Jim's widow, Mary Reeves, kept many of the recordings unreleased after his death in backlog and had them released, little by little over the years, to great success - so much so that younger executives in the record business had to be reminded that Jim has been gone for over 35 years! He even had an album reach Gold status in Denmark in 1999! It is a source of great frustration to Jim's fans and family that his great catalog of music does not get equal airplay today in the U.S. compared with other artists who have gone on such as Patsy Cline. But Jim's legacy still lives on, as one of the greatest voices in recorded music, country or otherwise.
- IMDb mini biography by: Lee-65

[in a 1964 interview] When I was five years old I heard my first phonograph recording. I was in the pasture, with a pet pig of mine, and was startled by the sound of music coming from the house. When I got there, there was this little suitcase-looking concern on the porch, with a crank, and music was coming from it. I couldn't understand how all those people could fit inside that little suitcase.

[on his popularity as a singer] Maybe it's just that I sound as if I enjoy what I'm doing. I don't work too hard at it. I never press. I just go on doing what I enjoy doing, and if other people like it I'm glad. After all, this is the only life we get. We just come through here once and I believe in making it a satisfying experience.