The Steel Guitar Forum

you listen to early Jim Reeves & Webb Pierce and would think they used the same steel player on their recordings. very nice sound something you cant do on todays guitars thats for sure. share your thoughts please

Joe,
From what I have gathered as a sworn Jim Reeves fan,
Jim used Pete Drake, Bobby Garrett and Jimmy Day on his recordings.

I think Jim used the steel very sparingly for a reason-
he wanted to switch over from the hillbilly sound to the more country/pop oriented type of style, with strings and horns, something he did very successfully.

Once in a while you'd hear some steel though. One in particular "Bottle take Effect" stands out in my mind as having Pete Drake on it.

Bent
Thank you for that yes stand at your window tonight was one I was thinking of. really nice sound but you also heard that same stuff on webbs recordings bet oh pete was doing that to. Joe

I read any article by Mr.Emmons one time[this is his words not mine.] He said he and Jimmy toured with Mr. Reeves a while. He treated both very bad. They would switch back and forth because neither could put up with him an extended lenght of time. When Mr. Reeves died Mr. Emmons said he was an SOB while he was alive and just because he's dead does'nt change anything. YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.

I have heard that same thing a few other times, and also the same was true for a few others thats passed on as well.

Eddie Arnold did not treat Little Roy good, If I had know that I wonder If I would spent all thoses hours listening to thoses records, yes I would I loved every minute listening to Little Roy and trying to learn from his playing. He and Don Helms used the same tunning and sounded so different, I tried it and really sound so different. Go figger,
I heard Speddu
west used it to.

ernie

I heard stories of 'Gentleman jim' throwing jimmy's steel down a staircase, because the producer insisted on steel guitar and, i suppose legend has it, Jim hated 'steel guitar' i heard he was a real mean fisty type egotistical!
Now you have never met any singers like that have you??

I spent an entire evening holding my place in front of the bandstand.....waiting the arrival on stage of
GENTLEMAN JIM... He arrived and wouldn't even look at the crowd. I finally got the courage at an appropriate time and respectfully requested his autograph.

He glared at me......and while uttering some disparaging, unkindly remark, turned and strode away with his nose high in the sky.

Many people close at had saw and heard it and simply evaporated into the large crowd.

I'm sorry he took a perfectly nice Bonanaza with him when he left.

What I have learnt from life is that if you believe nothing of what you are told, and half of what you see, then you are approaching the truth of the matter!

We tend to have the unrealistic expectation that because someone in the public eye is famous or outstanding, then they are also faultless.

Clearly Reeves wasn't perfect, which makes him the same as the rest of us; how much is truth or urban myth I will never know (nor do I care).

I prefer to remember him for his voice, and his special and rare talent to move people through song.

On a personal level, he was the first singer to draw me towards music. I was 5 or 6 years of age, and captivated by his voice. There was always a love of music and singing in our family, and my earliest memories are of John McCormack, Richard Tauber, Mario lanza, Kenneth McKellar, Hank Williams, marty Robbins and Jim Reeves records echoeing through the house.

My musical education has been broad in the last 47 years and my tastes have widened enormously, but I still stop and listen when I hear a Reeves song; it's like walking back through the front gate after being away for too long.

Richard

Richard Argus wrote:What I have learnt from life is that if you believe nothing of what you are told, and half of what you see, then you are approaching the truth of the matter!
Richard

Richard
Amen! What you said there, I may as well have written, but you worded it better than I could have.

It is simply amazing what we can be led to believe from magazine interviews etc, attributing words to the interviewee as if he had spoken them. When, in fact, magazines twist and misquote all the time.

No matter what the rumors say, Jim had one of the rarest, finest voices in the industry. His style and musical arrangements prevail to this day.

My immediate reaction to Jim Reeves is, and always has been ....

Barry, That's fine. We are all entitled to our opinions/likes/dislikes. It'd be a boring world if it were otherwise.

Barry, That's fine. We are all entitled to our opinions/likes/dislikes. It'd be a boring world if it were otherwise.

Yes it would, Bent. Thank you for the gracious response, in spite of my criticism.

Jim Reeves? Not a very good pilot either it seems,

Funny, Bobbe, VERY funny.

Brutal, Bobbe. FUNNY, but brutal.

Webb used Shot Jackson, Jimmy Day, Bob Foster, Billy Robinson, and Don Davis before he ever used Bud Isaacs. He even used Don Helms on one session later on.

Reeves used Jimmy Day, Bobby Garrett, and occasionally Don Helms. Pete Drake was on his sessions from late 1961 through Reeves' death.

Just located this great picture of Webb and Faron, with band members in San Antonio, probably 1953:




Left to right: Charlie Fitch (owner of a San Antonio recording studio), unknown, probably Floyd Cramer, Jimmy Day, Tillman Franks, and unknown, with Faron and Webb down front.

This has been very interesting and really all I was wanting to know was the steel players involved. I have got several emails from people that does not like the Jim Reeves bashing 5 all together so far. so guys if we can keep the noise down a little that would be helpful. Joe

Jim Reeves was one of my favorite country singers. I still appreciate his talent and the musical legacy he left behind in his recordings.

My favorite album in the collection I still have from the 1960's was one released on the RCA Camden label and had such great tunes as "Little-Ole-Dime", "I've Enjoyed As Much Of This As I Can Stand," "The Talking Walls." I read somewhere that Pete Drake played on the recording session. These songs were recorded in 1963 and some of them were released again in the 1980's with a different backup band (including Buddy Emmons).

Being a good singer dosen't nessesarily make one a good person. Jim Reeves was agood singer.

When I was a little kid my parents had an RCA Camden compilation album called The Country Stars, The Country Hits. It had the Jim Reeves version of 'Waitin' For A Train' on it, and I remember hearing Dobro and steel guitar on that song.

I have always been a Jim Reeves fan, even though I'd heard some of the aforementioned negative things concerning his working relationships with musicians. My mother had/has every album Jim ever recorded, and like someone else who posted, the strains of Jim Reeves music filled our central Maine home.....the sound of the steel guitar that was on those recordings, is one of the reasons I play steel today, and have been playing for nearly 40 years. Jims voice was flawless, perfect diction....you didn't have to strain to hear what the words of the song(s) were. I'll always and ever be a Reeves fan. Despite how he treated other people, (no one is without their faults) the man was an incredible singer. IMHO.......HAL

Larry Bressington wrote:I heard stories of 'Gentleman jim' throwing jimmy's steel down a staircase, because the producer insisted on steel guitar and, i suppose legend has it, Jim hated 'steel guitar' i heard he was a real mean fisty type egotistical!
Now you have never met any singers like that have you??

The steel that Gent Jim threw down the stairs was my dads (Bobby Garrett) fender Stringmaster. That happened on night in Vegas after the curtain fell. He and my dad got in a fight and the band broke them up and he told my dad to get packed up. While my dad was packing his gear Gentleman Jim got on the Bluebird bus and took off for Nashville. I purchased that same Fender Stringmaster from the JR estate and it now resides in the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville in my dads display.

Rick:

Here ya go. I don't think the steel shown is the one that went down the stairs? I saw the display in Nashville and as I recall the nameplate is a little different?

That of course is Leo Jackson with your dad.

In the other pic, can you ID anybody except your dad? That pic must be from about 1950.

Mitch Drumm wrote:Rick:

Here ya go. I don't think the steel shown is the one that went down the stairs? I saw the display in Nashville and as I recall the nameplate is a little different?

That of course is Leo Jackson with your dad.

In the other pic, can you ID anybody except your dad? That pic must be from about 1950.

Yea that's the one that Jim kicked down a flight of stairs in Vegas and it's the exact same guitar that's on display in the Musicians Hall of Fame Nashville.

The names I can remember in the photo are Jimmy Dennis (To the left of my dad) and Gene Worth to the left of Jimmy. Can't remember the other two but I have that information here somewhere. If I can find it I'll post it here.