Did You Know That Jim Reeves' music legacy still stands 60 years after fatal plane crash in Nashville

 

Did You Know That Jim Reeves' Music Legacy Still Stands 60 years After Fatal Plane Crash in Nashville

Six decades ago, the life of one Nashville's most iconic musicians was tragically cut short in a plane crash that rocked Music City to its core.

Jim Reeves, a crooner that stood at the intersection of country and pop, died in Nashville on Friday, July 31, 1964 alongside his manager and pianist, Dean Manuel.

Reeves, or "Gentleman Jim," is still known today for hits "He'll Have to Go," "Welcome to My World" and "I Love You Because." A member of The Grand Ole Opry, Reeves recorded "I'm a Hit Again" only days before his death.

By the early 1960s, he'd achieved international fame.

Jim Reeves, center, works with Chet Atkins, right, RCA manager of Nashville operations, in the RCA studio on Oct. 19, 1962. Reeves is recording his first Christmas album for RCA Victor.

That Friday night in 1964, Reeves and Manuel left Batesville, Arkansas, flying in a single-engine Beechcraft Debonair and heading to Nashville; Reeves piloted the plane.

After being caught in a thunderstorm, towers lost connection with the plane in Nashville and a 44-hour search began.

About 2,000 searchers combed through 20 square miles of rugged terrain.

Civil Defense officials and volunteers are going over their search areas of the heavily wooded area near Brentwood on July 31, 1964. They are searching for a small private plane believed carrying Jim Reeves and piano player Dean Manuel that was reported missing on a trip from Batesville, Ark.

Fellow country musicians Bill Pursell, Eddy Arnold, Chet Atkins, Ernest Tubb, Stonewall Jackson and Marty Robbins were among the searchers hunting for the wreckage.

Two days later, a member of the Davidson Country Civil Defense rescue team found the wreckage and two bodies.

"Immediately after the wreckage was announced, hundreds of spectators gathered at the scene, blocking Franklin Road traffic," wrote Tennessean reporters Jerry Thompson and Frank Sutherland on Aug. 3, 1964.

Federal and state officials found famed country music singer Jim Reeves and a companion in the charred wreckage of their small plane in a wooded area 400 yards east of Franklin Road near Brentwood on Aug. 2, 1964. Reeves, 39, and his piano player and road manager, Dean Manuel, 30, were returning from a business trip.

"Famed country music singer Jim Reeves and a companion were found dead yesterday in the charred wreckage of a small private plane in a wooded area 400 yards east of Franklin Road near Brentwood," The Tennessean reported.

Reeves, who died at 39 years old, left behind his wife, Mary, and a community of fans and fellows musicians in Nashville who mourned his loss.

Mary Reeves, center, veiled in black, walks to her car on Aug. 4, 1964, after attending joint services for her husband, Jim Reeves, and Dean Manuel, both killed in a plane crash near Brentwood. Accompanying her are a friend, Mrs. Billy Grammer, second from right; her maid, Mrs. Eula Mosley, and funeral director Tom Phillips, left, at the Phillips-Robinson Funeral Home.

Jim Reeves' country music still influence felt today

"I mean, think right now one if one of the biggest stars in Nashville suddenly died," said Michael McCall, the associate director of editorial at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

"It was exactly what happened then," he said. "He was really the one of the biggest stars in country music."

Jim Reeves records "White Christmas" in the RCA studio on Oct. 25, 1962, for his first Christmas album with RCA Victor.

His smooth voice made him one of the practitioners of the "Nashville Sound," a style that blended the smooth, crooning pop music of the time with country music, leveling out the rough honky-tonk sounds.

"He came to Nashville in the 1950s and he had such a rich, resonant voice at a time when country music started smoothing itself out, in some ways, to attract a larger audience," McCall said.

"Reeves had a lot of hits that were both on pop radio and in country radio, so he was part of Nashville's expansion of country music into that area," he said.

Youthful fans crowd around the feet of Jim Reeves as he sings "Danny Boy" duringThe Tennessean's special Nashville Symphony concert at Centennial Park on Aug. 15, 1961. It was the first time country music star Reeves had sung with a full symphony orchestra.

Reeves' legacy is felt today in much of the country-pop crossovers we still see — Jelly Roll and Florida Georgia Line are two pop-country artists McCall pointed to.

"The pop music market is different today than it was for him, so they're not smooth crooners like they were in the '60s," McCall said. "But in the same way, they're taking elements from pop music into country music."

Reeves was a "visionary," McCall said, looking ahead to expand the country music audience