If anyone were to ask me the single
most important Jim Reeves event in the
50 years since his death, I would have
no hesitation in saying the release of
Bear Family’s multi-CD masterpiece
‘Welcome To My World,’ released in
1994, still in the catalogue and still the
label’s largest box set with 16 CDs, a
total of 446 recordings. A 124 page
book by Colin Escott completes the
package. It is a collection no fan
should be without, and I shudder to
think what my Reeves musical journey would have been
without it. It features all of Jim’s studio recordings for Macy’s, Fabor, Abbott
and RCA Victor, including previously unissued recordings.
Now with the 50
th
anniversary of his untimely death in a plane crash on July 31
st
1964 upon us, Bear Family has looked at the Reeves vaults for a final time to
revisit and re-examine his 3 year recording career with the independent Abbott
Records between 1952 and 1955. The 3 CD set contains a total of 76 tracks, made
up of 29 single masters plus a mix of unissued takes, alternate takes, false starts
and demos. As an added bonus, Bear have included in the set the 4 sides Reeves
recorded for the small Texas label Macy’s in 1949. With the addition of the Macy’s
tracks, this set completes the collection of Reeves’ studio recordings right up to his
signing to RCAVictor in 1955.
The original tape boxes which revealed the Abbott story were discovered by
Richard Weize during preparatory research for his first proposed Bear Family set.
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