Ireland’s love affair with Jim Reeves has endured over the decades and shows no sign of waning. Last week marked the 50th anniversary of his death in a plane crash in Tennessee, on 31 July, 1964. Around the world, radio stations played the songs of Reeves, spreading magic as in the days of yore. The legend lives on.

Probably no American country singer has had more of a lasting impact on Irish audiences than the tall Texan. Jim Reeves’ songs remain timeless classics, touching hearts today as they did when first released back in the 1950s.

Irish tour

In 1963, Jim played his only Irish tour. Thousands flocked to see him at venues all over the country. He was met on arrival at Shannon Airport by Noel Andrews of Radio Éireann, Maisie McDaniel (Sligo) and Dermot O’Brien (Louth), two major names on the country circuit back then.

His first Irish date was in the Oyster Ballroom (now a furniture store) in Dromkeen, Co Limerick, along the main Limerick to Tipperary town road. It was like Hollywood royalty descending on the Irish towns he visited, such was the excitement.

In Kiltimagh in Co Mayo, Jim’s visit is remembered for different reasons. He was booked to do an early night show in the local Diamond Ballroom before travelling to Strandhill in Sligo for a second show. Jim arrived in town and the story goes that the old piano was so bad that he refused to go on stage. Whatever the reason, Jim never did perform a song in Kiltimagh on that night in June 1963.

Throughout the years, his songs pass from generation to generation. They include such classics as He’ll Have To Go, I Love You Because, There’s A Heartache Following Me, This World Is Not My Home, My Heart Is In Rosario, The Fool’s Paradise, I’ll Fly Away, Distant Drums, Four Walls, I Won’t Forget You, Anna Marie and Adios Amigo.

He also recorded some wonderful monologues like The Blizzard, Men With Broken Hearts, Annabel Lee, Old Tighe, The Padre of Old San Antone and The Spell of The Yukon. Gospel songs were close to his heart and he recorded some of the classics from over the years. His Christmas album still sells thousands of copies every year.

Larry Cunningham from Granard, a great admirer of Jim’s music and style, scored a top 40 hit in the UK charts back in the mid-1960s with his Tribute To Jim Reeves song, penned by Tubbercurry-born and Dublin-based barrister, the legendary Eddie Masterson. Radio Caroline and other stations played their role in giving Larry his biggest international hit.

Jim Tobin from Meath and Oliver Barrett from Midleton in Cork were singers who were also closely associated with the music of Jim Reeves over the years, while Gene Stuart also recorded several of Jim Reeves’ songs.

In more recent times, Al Grant has been synonymous with Jim Reeves’ style and his tribute show played to packed venues here in Ireland back in the spring. The show was so successful, that Al will again headline a series of The Jim Reeves Story in October and November at venues around Ireland.

Commemorative CD and booklet

H&H Music, owned by Steve Brink and based in London, has just released an enthralling 50th anniversary commemorative edition. The Great Jim Reeves is an eight-CD set featuring 170 songs and a 48-page booklet by Jim’s biographer, Larry Jordan. A lot of care and thought has gone into this collection. The booklet reveals that the British Gramophone magazine, which calls itself “the world’s authority on classical music since 1923,” ran an article by John Oakland who opined that: “The greatest male singer of the post-war era was the late Jim Reeves, who could renew the most jaded reviewer’s interest in a much-recorded ballad.”

In an interesting reflection, they quote from an article penned by Jim three months before he died.

“Tennessee, the Appalachian and Cumberland mountains of Kentucky, North Georgia and the Carolinas and Virginia, have long been a store-house of folk songs.

“Songs from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland were handed down from generation to generation. Everyone used to sing in the mountains. Few homes were without some musical instruments, usually a fiddle, guitar or banjo. And everyone seemed to have a natural gift for singing, playing or composing ballads. Styles may come and styles may go, but country and western music, with its origins in centuries-old melodies, is truly music for all people, music that will live forever. That is why it’s my kind of music.”

For this brand new compilation, H&H has taken many of Jim’s best-loved songs, as well as some obscure recordings.

Larry Jordan opines: “Reeves sang with such confidence, skill and ease, one never grew tired of hearing him. Yet no matter how close to perfection he came, he was never satisfied and always thought he could have sung better. His singing moved these songs out of time into something everlasting. In Jim Reeves’ music, there is no past tense.”

That last sentence, in essence, says it all. The music of Jim Reeves lives on, as vibrant as ever.