Jim Reeves - The Complete Abbott Recordings, Plus

Bear Family BCD 17356 CR



The majority of Jim Reeves’ fans became lovers of his music via the soft crooning ballad style that he perfected in the late 1950s. Over the years Reeves’ smooth pop-country sound gained the Texas-born singer a vast world-wide following … a following that grew even larger after his death in a plane crash in 1964. Before Reeves perfected that smooth sound, he sung in a higher, twangy register and maintained what is often referred to as a traditional country style. This 3-CD set is exactly what it says on the box—all of the recordings that Jim Reeves made for the small Abbott label plus four tracks recorded for the even smaller Macy’s label. The recordings date from October 1949 through to February 1955, prior to Reeves signing with RCA Records in April 1955 and the drastic change in the Reeves’ sound and style. Though many of these recordings have been readily available in several formats over the years, this marks the first time that all the recordings, including previously unissued versions, outtakes and studio chatter have been collected in one package. As an added bonus is the detailed 124pp booklet which gives all the background details on  Reeves’ career at the time, the recording sessions and those involved from songwriters to musicians to those behind the scenes. It’s an invaluable collection, not just for Jim Reeves’ aficionados, but also the serious country music collector who might want to fully understand the history of country music.

Reeves began his recording career for the small Macy’s label in Houston, Texas in October 1949. He recorded just four songs that were released on two singles in 1950. All four songs, co-written by Reeves with local musician Al ‘Rusty’ Courtney, were bland ballads and the singles sold poorly. In early 1950 Reeves returned to the studio to record some more of his own songs including I Could Cry, Wagon Load Of Love and You’re The Sweetest Thing, which he sent to Macy’s in the hope that they would release them, but they declined. Two years later Reeves was signed to the California-based Abbott Record Co. and re-recorded those three songs in Dallas Texas and so began a successful turnaround in his singing career. His fourth session for Abbott, in early 1953, produced his first chart single for the label, Mexican Joe, a Mitchell Torok song, which spent nine weeks at the top of the American country charts that same year. He consolidated that success with Bimbo, which spent three weeks at number one in early 1954. All told he released 14 singles for Abbott with three more of them becoming hits—Then I’ll Stop Loving You, Penny Candy and Drinking Tequila. This success led to him signing with RCA and perfecting the smooth pop-country sound that made him an international star beloved around the world.
I’ve always really enjoyed the majority of Jim Reeves’ Abbott recordings. Unlike too many of the trad-sounding country vocalists of the time, he never tried to emulate the sound and style of Hank Williams. From the outset Jim was a stylist and he perfected a distinctive sound and style that was very much his own. The recordings, which often took place at the Louisiana Hayride studios in Shreveport, featured some of the top musicians from that famed radio show including steel guitarist Jimmy Day, fiddle players ‘Big Red’ Hayes and ‘Little Red’ Hayes, pianist Floyd Cramer and guitarist Tommy Bishop. Amongst my favourites here I’d have to include Mitchell Torok’s Butterfly Love, the Mexican flavoured El Rancho Del Rio and the ballad Where Does A Broken Heart Go? This is an interesting and absorbing collection, especially with the various outtakes which turns the spotlight on how Jim Reeves worked in the studio as he endeavoured to produce the best recordings possible under the strict budgets and studio equipment available at the time.

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