It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “I Guess I’m Crazy” by Jim Reeves
October 14, 1964
“I Guess I’m Crazy” by Jim Reeves
#1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, August 29 – October 16, 1964
When 40-year-old Jim Reeves died in a plane crash on July 31, 1964, he was one of the biggest country stars in the world. While it may seem hyperbolic (and nationalistic) to throw around the phrase “in the world” to describe something as distinctly American as country music, in Reeves’ case, it’s actually true. More than any other artist, Reeves was responsible for transforming a one-time “hillbilly” genre into an international phenomenon. He was one of the first country acts to tour the globe, even starring in a South African movie (1963’s Kimberley Jim) and recording an album in Afrikaans. While Reeves was a major artist in the United States, notching 32 Top 10 country hits before his death (five of which topped the charts), only a handful of his songs crossed over into the pop Top 40. In contrast, he scored several mainstream #1s in countries such as Australia, Norway, and Ireland.
Much of Reeves’ international success can be attributed to his highly polished sound, which was more accessible to foreign audiences than the honky tonk of Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell. Reeves was one of the pioneers of the Nashville Sound, a style of country music which borrowed heavily from pop in its lush arrangements and crooning vocals. (In fact, his 1957 hit “Four Walls” is sometimes credited as the first Nashville Sound record.) Reeves favored smooth ballads over country rave-ups, while his velvety, carefully enunciated vocals bore only a trace of Texas twang. His nickname “Gentleman Jim” spoke to his refined sensibility and genteel dress sense, preferring subtly patterned suits over costumey Country and Western wear. Along with his female counterpart, Patsy Cline (who coincidentally died in a plane crash a year before him), Reeves helped country music shed its hillbilly image and cross over into the mainstream.
Reeves’ cover of “I Guess I’m Crazy,” originally a hit for Tommy Collins in 1955, clearly illustrates the contrast between the Nashville Sound and the country music old guard. Collins sings in the high-pitched, slightly nasal style characteristic of traditional country, with a distinct rural accent loud enough to reach the back rows of the Grand Ole Opry. His instrumentation is simple: a pedal steel guitar, a walking bass line, a touch of fiddle. It’s the kind of record you can imagine a trucker listening to in a honky tonk, a single tear rolling into his smudged glass of Schlitz.
Reeves’ version, on the other hand, is more suited to savoring over a snifter of mid-level brandy. The steel guitar is swapped for a standard acoustic, the fiddle gets upgraded to an orchestral string section, and Reeves’ baritone croon, trained for a microphone rather than a hoedown, is backed by a small choir of pure-toned vocalists. Only the traditionally folky song structure and the slow shuffling beat betray the song’s country roots.
“I Guess I’m Crazy” was released as a single shortly before Reeves’ death, but it didn’t top the country charts until nearly a month afterward. Astonishingly, it would be just the first of six posthumous #1 country singles credited to Reeves — even more than he had managed to rack up during his lifetime. Reeves would continue to be a fixture in the charts through the rest of the ’60s and ’70s, scoring his final Top 10 country hit in 1982, 18 years after his death. (That record? A digitally-created duet with the other late titan of the Nashville Sound, Patsy Cline, on “Have You Ever Been Lonely.”)
While Reeves managed to maintain his popularity in America in the two decades after his death, overseas his star grew even brighter posthumously. In 1966, the single “Distant Drums” (newly relevant, thanks to the Vietnam War) topped the UK charts for five weeks, while his 1960 album According to My Heart repeated the same trick for four weeks in 1969. Even today, as admired as Reeves may be among American fans of pop
crooners and old-school country, his cult is far more fervent in the British Isles, South Africa, Scandinavia, and South Asia (where he’s the biggest Western singer in South India and Sri Lanka).
In the seven years between “Four Walls” and his death, Reeves recorded a discography that would help shape the future of country music. His pop-friendly sound and international focus created a template for generations of country megastars to come, including Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, and Taylor Swift. Yet Reeves’ legacy has also opened questions of what constitutes “real” country, a debate that continues among fans who argue that mainstream country music has lost touch with its gritty, rural roots. Intriguingly, however, something like “I Guess I’m Crazy” is in fact the reverse of most modern country-pop hybrids: a traditional country song dressed in the trappings of pop, rather than a pop song gussied up with touches of steel guitar and fiddle.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
