JIM REEVES
Jim Reeves (August 20, 1923 – July 31, 1964) was an American country and popular music singer-songwriter. With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he became well known as a practitioner of the Nashville sound (a mixture of older country-style music with elements of popular music). Known as “Gentleman Jim”, his songs continued to chart for years after his death. Reeves died in the crash of a private airplane. He is a member of both the Country Music and Texas Country Music Halls of Fame. (More from Wikipedia)
By now, the parade of early deaths of beloved musicians is long indeed. Not a few of these losses have occurred in small airplane crashes: Glenn Miller, John Denver, Jim Reeves, Otis Redding, Jim Croce, Rick Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Aaliyah, and three bandmembers in Lynyrd Skynyrd: Ronnie van Zant, Stevie Gaines, and Cassie Gaines. There is even a parallel to “The Day the Music Died” in country music, when Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins all died in a plane crash on March 5, 1963.
(June 2013/1)
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The next outing by the Lazy Cowgirls was a live album; as fine as their studio recordings are, where the band really excelled was on stage (they tell me). The first album released by the esteemed record label called Sympathy for the Record Industry was Radio Cowgirl (1989), recorded live at a local radio station, KCSB-FM. Mark Deming writes of this album for Allmusic: “A promo spot advertising the broadcast that kicks off this album proclaims that the Lazy Cowgirls will play ‘loud, fast, hard rock & roll music’, and it’s hard to disagree. There are a few sloppy moments here and there (be warned: This is real rock & roll, where not everything is supposed to be perfect), and the sound is a bit thin (like the un-retouched two-track recording it is); but all four Cowgirls are clearly audible and pouring their heart and soul into every moment of the show (even on the joke cover of the theme from Green Acres). Besides, how many bands can cover the Ramones and the Saints alongside Larry Williams and Jim Reeves and actually do justice to all of ’em?”
(March 2017)
