10-30-2010, 05:11 PM
Jim Reeves ~ Distant Drums [Orginally released in 1966]
Jim Reeves was born in Galloway, Texas, a small rural community near Carthage. Winning an athletic scholarship to the University of Texas, he enrolled to study speech and drama, but dropped out after six weeks to work at the shipyards in Houston. Soon he returned to baseball, playing in the semi-professional leagues before signing with the St. Louis Cardinals farm team in 1944 as a right-handed pitcher. He stayed in the minor leagues for three years before severing his sciatic nerve on the pitching mound which ended his athletic career.
Reeves began to work as a DJ, and sang live between songs. In the late 1940s, he was signed to a couple of small Texas-based record labels, but with no success. Influenced by such Western swing artists as Jimmie Rodgers and Moon Mullican, as well as popular crooners Bing Crosby, Eddy Arnold and Frank Sinatra, it was not long before he got a foothold in the music industry. He was a member of Moon Mullican's band and made some early Mullican-style recordings like "Each Beat of my Heart" and "My Heart's Like a Welcome Mat" from the late 1940s to the early 1950s.
He eventually landed a job as an announcer on KWKH-AM in Shreveport, Louisiana, home to the popular Louisiana Hayride. His musical break came when singer Sleepy LaBeef was late for a performance on the Hayride, according to former Hayride emcee Frank Page, and Reeves was asked to fill in. (Other accountsâincluding Reeves himself, in an interview on the RCA album Yours Sincerelyâname Hank Williams as the absentee.)
On July 31, 1964, Reeves and his business partner and manager Dean Manuel (also the pianist in Reeves' backing group, The Blue Boys) left Batesville, Arkansas en route to Nashville in a single-engine Beechcraft Debonair aircraft, with Reeves at the controls. On the morning of August 2, 1964, the bodies of Reeves and Manuel were found in the aircraft wreckage and at 1:00 p.m. (local time) radio stations across the United States formally announced Reeves' death. Thousands turned out to pay their last respects at his funeral on August 4. The coffin, draped in flowers from fans, was driven through the streets of Nashville and then to Reeves' final resting place near Carthage, Texas.
Jim Reeves was born in Galloway, Texas, a small rural community near Carthage. Winning an athletic scholarship to the University of Texas, he enrolled to study speech and drama, but dropped out after six weeks to work at the shipyards in Houston. Soon he returned to baseball, playing in the semi-professional leagues before signing with the St. Louis Cardinals farm team in 1944 as a right-handed pitcher. He stayed in the minor leagues for three years before severing his sciatic nerve on the pitching mound which ended his athletic career.
Reeves began to work as a DJ, and sang live between songs. In the late 1940s, he was signed to a couple of small Texas-based record labels, but with no success. Influenced by such Western swing artists as Jimmie Rodgers and Moon Mullican, as well as popular crooners Bing Crosby, Eddy Arnold and Frank Sinatra, it was not long before he got a foothold in the music industry. He was a member of Moon Mullican's band and made some early Mullican-style recordings like "Each Beat of my Heart" and "My Heart's Like a Welcome Mat" from the late 1940s to the early 1950s.
He eventually landed a job as an announcer on KWKH-AM in Shreveport, Louisiana, home to the popular Louisiana Hayride. His musical break came when singer Sleepy LaBeef was late for a performance on the Hayride, according to former Hayride emcee Frank Page, and Reeves was asked to fill in. (Other accountsâincluding Reeves himself, in an interview on the RCA album Yours Sincerelyâname Hank Williams as the absentee.)
On July 31, 1964, Reeves and his business partner and manager Dean Manuel (also the pianist in Reeves' backing group, The Blue Boys) left Batesville, Arkansas en route to Nashville in a single-engine Beechcraft Debonair aircraft, with Reeves at the controls. On the morning of August 2, 1964, the bodies of Reeves and Manuel were found in the aircraft wreckage and at 1:00 p.m. (local time) radio stations across the United States formally announced Reeves' death. Thousands turned out to pay their last respects at his funeral on August 4. The coffin, draped in flowers from fans, was driven through the streets of Nashville and then to Reeves' final resting place near Carthage, Texas.
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