(1) This didn't really fit into my previous piece, but I didn't want to abandon it: Reeves was and remains a HUGE star in certain other countries, including Great Britain, Germany and Norway, but especially so in South Africa, India, and Sri Lanka. If I may quote from Wikipedia:
"Robert Svoboda, in his trilogy on aghora and the Aghori Vimalananda, mentions that Vimalananda considered Reeves a gandharva, i.e. in Indian tradition, a heavenly musician, who had been born on Earth. He had Svoboda play Reeves' "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" at his cremation."
(I'd like to note that this was entirely unsolicited, unlike Stephen Seagal's promotion to "reincarnated lama" status. I don't anticipate that any such honors will be bestowed on Trace Adkins or Lady Antebellum any time soon.)
A year or two ago, I was playing a Roger Miller album at work when a young South Asian woman walked up to the counter and asked if it was Jim Reeves. In talking to her, I learned that while she wasn't that knowledgeable about Reeves, that her parents and other family members were big fans, and that her aunt had gone to the Jim Reeves Museum while on vacation in America. Back home in either Pakistan or Sri Lanka (I forget which), this was seen as a big enough deal that she was asked to write an article for the local newspaper about her experience.
(2) On a more personal note, my grandfather was not a major music fan (he didn't own more than a dozen records and a handful of 8-tracks), but his two favorite singers were Jim Reeves and Jimmy Rodgers. He had spent some time as a hobo in the 1930s, and as a result, this was his favorite song by either of them:
I still prefer my grandfather's off-key rendering of it, but Jim does it pretty well, too.
