Like a Moth to a Flame: The Jim Reeves Story Hardcover – June 1, 1998

The book came on time and was in very good condition, as advertised. Wouldn't hesitate ordering from this company again. Bill D.

I was reluctant to write a review about this book because there were so many comments by Jim Reeves fans that depicted this book as a horrible distortion of the real Jim Reeves.Well, I have read many articles about Jim Reeves and I have come to the same conclusion that the author, Michael Streissguth, concludes in this book.Jim was a very talented singer, performer, business man, and yet like so many other celebrities, he had his other side of life.Jim, at times, could be arrogant, obnoxious, mean and downright vulgar when dealing with other people.There is no bigger fan of Jim Reeves than I, but this book did not make me hate him or even diminision my love for the man and his music.The author did an excellent job of describing how talented, loved and respected Jim was and yet at the same time he pointed out his weakness in dealing with his peers.This is an excellent book for fans of Jim and no one will appreciate him less because the author told the entire story of this wonderful singer and performer.Bill Comer of Orlando, Florida

Considering his prominent status in country music history, it is surprising that this is the first in-depth biography of Jim Reeves. A biography on Reeves seems a natural progression for the author Streissguth, who had previously put out a book on Eddy Arnold Pioneer of the Nashville Sound). Reeves and Arnold were very similar musically: easy listening music marketed to a country audience, with Reeves rising to popularity in the early `50s - about a decade after Arnold. As revealed in this book, however, Reeves certainly did not possess a temperament similar to the easy going Arnold (more on that later).Our story begins with an overly scholarly analysis of the Reeves ancestry. The author looks at the family tree from their arrival in this country in the 1600s through Jim's birth in 1923 in Texas. The book picks up as we progress through Reeves' destitute youth (the youngest of eight children raised by his siblings and widowed mother in a two-bedroom sharecropper's house) and his six-year career as a minor league ballplayer. Once the author moves into Jim's career as a disc jockey and popular musician, the book becomes enthralling.Streissguth effectively conveys the contradictions in Reeves, the man. Known as Gentleman Jim for his polite demeanor and smooth voice, Reeves had a hot temper which made him a terror in the recording studios and, occasionally, on stage - when touring conditions were deemed less than acceptable (such as his overbooked tour of Ireland). He was loyal to his friends though and often turned over all of the earnings from a club date to his backup musicians when they were underpaid by the promoter. Reeves also tended towards impatience - a quality which probably contributed to his death in a plane crash at the age of 40 (flying his plane during a horrendous storm when he should have waited for it to pass).Lurking in the background throughout this story and even more fascinating is Reeves' wife Mary. The reader learns that Jim cheated on Mary throughout their marriage. For whatever reasons, she choose to overlook this indescretion and it neverappeared to affect her devotion to him. Also discussed is Mary's effectiveness as Jim's manager, particularly after his death. She was instrumental in the regular reissues of Reeves' recordings (usually demo vocals overdubbed with new instrumentation) which charted prominently for over ten years after his death - a posthumous career unparalleled in music history even by Elvis Presley.The inside back jacket of the book includes a 6-song CD of some of Reeves' biggest hits like "Four Walls" and "He'll Have To Go." This bonus provides a good tease that will leave you wanting to obtain a more thorough collection of Reeves' music.The book itself, however, is the only Jim Reeves biography you'll ever need to read. It's an eventually compelling look at a complex individual.

JIM REEVES LIKE A MOTH TO A FLAME by Michael StreissguthFrom my C&W vinyl junkie (record nut) perspective, I found this book disappointing, especially compared to the author's Eddy Arnold bio, which explained/confirmed what I'd heard about Eddy's treatment of his 1955-64 attempt to repudiate his 1945-54 hits' era recordings and my own observations about Eddy's abysmal later lounge orientation. But Michael Streissguth's Eddy Arnold bio put the high note on a BAD artist. This book about Jim Reeves: not so much.I glossed over the personal stories and tempermental anecdotes looking for information about Jim Reeves' RCA recording career (in the grand scheme of C&W and pop music, he's an important road marker), when he successfully found a formula to get hits and record sales in the mid-late `50s, swimming upstream against Elvis wrecking, well, all the GOOD music that came out of Nashville in the honky-tonk pre-'55 era: he made boring records, and they sold spectacularly, at least on 45s. If, as Billboard stated at the time, Eddy Arnold was "the Country Como," then Reeves was the Country Bing: a nearly 10 year pop dominance in country music.For my interests, the meat of the book runs from chapters 6, page 86, through chapter 10, ending page 179. It concentrates on two BIG hit singles, "Four Walls" and "He'll Have to Go," but Streissguth doesn't fish very deep at the most central part of the professional story: RCA and Chet Atkins making the Nashville sound. The high point of the book in this regard is a laugh out loud observation found on page 137:"...In Chet's RCA studio, it may as well have been Columbia's Guy Mitchell behind the mike with his label mates the Four lads singing backup, but it was Jim Reeves and the Jordanaires, and they were creeping onto Mitchell and the Lads' turf."Jim Reeves: RCA's Guy Mitchell--that's funny! Streissguth just called Chet Atkins RCA/Victor's Nashville eeevil Mitch Miller, too! Lower down the page, mention of THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW....What really makes the Eddy Arnold book is the sessionography/discography at the end of that book. Streissguth here skimps to a selective vinyl Lp discography, and it is skimpy. Here's a few things that Streissguth overlooked, interesting at least if you're a record nut (my selective observations about Reeves's Lp record releases):HE'LL HAVE TO GO Lp, RCA/Victor LPM 2223 was first issued in mono only, with a B&W cover. As Streissguth notes, it was a slap-dash exploitation of the then 2-3 month old monster title track. RCA/Victor issued the album out of numeric sequence: LPM 2223 date late March, 1960; THE INTIMATE JIM REEVES (LPM/LSP 2216) dates July, 1960; an Esquivel & His Orchestra Lp, LSP/LPM 2225 (two release numbers after Reeves's LPM 2223) dates August, 1960. RCA "snatched" an unused/unassigned later album in the release order to get a quicky Lp sales jump on the monster single. RCA/Victor reissued HE'LL HAVE TO GO with a rechanneled (fake rain barrel) "stereo" version and changed the cover slick to a color shot as LSP 2223e, most likely about January, 1962, when the label introduced its line of "Electronically Reprocessed for Stereo," which were a buck more expensive ($3.98 list mono; $4.98 list stereo/"stereo"). The album got to pop #18 on Billboard on 7/04/60. It did less well on the Cash Box pop Lp charts, 5/21/60 at 43, 48, 44, 45, and gone....When the trade mags split out C&W Lp charts in 1964, Jim Reeves' albums were catalog sellers. These are Cash Box debut dates and peaks:A TOUCH OF VELVET, RCA LPM/LSP 2487 - 6/16/62 (pop) peak #40.C&W:INTERNATIONAL JIM REEVES, RCA LPM/LSP 2704 - 3/28/64 peak #16.GOOD `N COUNTRY, RCA/Camden CAL/CAS 784 -4/18/64 peak #10.KIMBERLY JIM, RCA LPM/LSP 2780 - 4/25/64 peak #26.MOONLIGHT & ROSES, LPM/LSP 2854 - 5/23/64 peak #1 (total 10 weeks at #1) Note: it crossed over to the pop Lp chart beginning 9/05/64, after his plane crashTOUCH OF VELVET, RCA LPM/LSP 2487 charted C&W after the plane crash, 8/29/64, peak #21, two years after its original issue.THE BEST OF JIM REEVES was released by RCA maybe three weeks before the plane crash. Jim was at the top of his popularity when he died. The album, RCA/Victor LPM/LSP 2890, was RIAA certified gold (500,000 copies at $1 million sales) on 7/20/66, just over two years after release.The tragic suggestion about Jim Reeves' plane crash is that a "Best Of..." hits compilation usually means a bookend of a recording artist's style. Meaning that Reeves' post-1965 recordings would likely have shown an updated direction in his music. The 7/25/64 crash froze his catalog and style in place at his first hits' compilation album.

A very interesting book which documents the life of a much loved singer, who's memory long outlives his life and "live singing career". His post-humous singing career goes on as popular today as it did when he was alive. The book tells his story simply and straight-forward and is well illustrated with some lovely photos of the singer, his wife and associates.Aidan

enjoyed

Enjoyable,interesting read. Very glad to have found this book. Bought as a present for relative who is Jim Reeves Fan. They were thrilled with it