A Happy Type of Sadness:

A Journey Through Irish Country Music

Kevin Martin

• Publisher: Mercier Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781781175828
• eBook ISBN: 9781781175835
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Country music fandom is at an all-time high in Ireland; social dancing has never been as popular. New artists, bands and venues proliferate; it seems each week 'Ireland's latest country sensation' is brought to the public's attention through the ever-widening media outlets populated by the genre. This book provides a comprehensive history of the genre looking at the artists and their music and seeking to contextualise the genre within the wider context of Irish culture. It demonstrates the significant role Ireland has played in the history and development of American country music and how, as an old classic country song says, the circle has remained unbroken. It also analyses the associated media, dance and social cultures. Irish country music is now a significant industry on a continuous upward curve. It earns a lot of money for a lot of people. It deserves a work of record. 



This book is the first of its kind. It is written in an easy to understand language to appeal to the widest possible demographic. It is also written from a neutral point of view but in a way that appeals to the fans of country and Irish music. 




Artists covered include Big Tom, Daniel O'Donnell, Nathan Carter, Philomena Begley, Susan McCann and Robert Mizell. 




The author is an established writer with extensive media experience including RTÉ Radio 1, TV3, Irish Independent,  The Irish Times, New York Times, The Irish Post and a plethora of local and regional radio stations.

1

Jim Reeves Had to Go but Larry Cunningham Saved the Night

Adios amigo. Adios my friend,

The road we have travelled has come to an end.

I ride to The Rio where my life I must spend,

Adios Amigo. Adios my friend.

From ‘Adios Amigo’ sung by Jim Reeves1

On Friday 7 June 1963 the internationally acclaimed American country music star ‘Gentleman’ Jim Reeves placed a white towel over his right shoulder and walked unhappily from the stage of the Orchid Ballroom in Lifford, County Donegal, shortly after he had commenced the third song of his set. The towel was a prearranged signal to his band and entourage. Reeves had had enough. He was not going to have his talents compromised by poor standards and, if his Irish fans were going to hear him, the conditions would have to be as he had requested. The American star was not going to stand there and listen to people booing him. Jim Reeves left the hall, got onto his tour bus, put his head down and told the driver to go to Derry city.

Reeves’ smooth baritone voice and crooning style was distinctive in the world of country music in the 1960s. It had none of the nasal twang – the ‘hillbilly’ sound – which had dominated country music for so long. He simply stood close to the microphone, played his guitar and sang his melodic ballads. His was the original velvet voice of country music, closer in sound to middle-of-the-road crooners like Bing Crosby than to classic hillbilly singers like Hank Williams or Jimmie Rodgers. When he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1967, a bronze plaque put it simply: ‘The velvet voice of Gentleman Jim Reeves was an international influence. His rich voice brought millions of new fans to country music from every corner of the world.’

In the late 1950s country music in the United States – still called hillbilly by some – had been badly shaken by the arrival of rockabilly and of rock and roll. In the minds of some industry insiders it would need to adapt if it was to keep a foothold in the commercial market. Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and their new rockabilly sounds had changed the playing field forever. Music executives worried that if country music did not change, it would be perceived as backwards and old-fashioned, with its moaning steel guitar, yodelling cowboys and country-cousin stage acts. Legendary Nashville music producer Chet Atkins heard Jim Reeves singing and made a plan. He signed the singer to RCA recording company and set about overhauling Reeves’ voice and image. Reeves’ earliest material had been sung with a high-pitched, nasal twang in classic hillbilly style; Atkins got him to lower his voice, added a vibraphone and bass to the music mix, and included a female choir to heighten the pop sound. It was country music with the rough edges rounded off and polished smooth – a style which became known as the ‘Nashville Sound’ and was to change American country music forever.

Urban music lovers warmed to Jim’s crooning purr, as did those beyond the borders of the United States. Horn arrangements and full string sections replaced fiddles and steel guitars in more and more elaborate productions as the Nashville Sound developed. Reeves’ mellow, romantic, smooth delivery proved a perfect marketing strategy. With the ‘twang’ of the steel guitar and fiddles removed, the songs appealed to both the country and pop markets. For some it was the death of real country music, but for many in the business it was manna from heaven.

Later in his life, when asked to define the Nashville Sound, Atkins famously put his hand in his pocket and rattled the change. By the time of his death in 1968 Atkins was referred to as ‘The King of Music Row’ and was worth a fortune.

Jim Reeves had lived an interesting life before he got to Ireland. Born James Travis Reeves in 1920 in Galloway, Texas, he had a promising career as a baseball player and had won an athletic scholarship to university to study drama, but left after six weeks. He worked in Houston shipyards and played semi-professional baseball for three years until he picked up a career-ending injury to a sciatic nerve. Determined to make his career in broadcasting, Reeves worked for a number of small radio stations in Texas. With his mellow voice and slow, drawled delivery, he proved to be a natural presenter. He had clear diction and a rhythmic style, which – combined with his naturally deep voice – would later help to make him a singing star.

In December 1952 Reeves got a job as an announcer on KWKH radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Soon he was introducing acts on the station’s famous live-music show Louisiana Hayride, a programme which had started broadcasting in 1948 and proved a launching pad for many music stars. One was Elvis Presley, who announced himself to the world when he sang ‘That’s All Right’ on the show on 16 October 1954. Occasionally Reeves would sing a song, substituting for absent artists. The listeners liked what they heard and requested more.

In 1953 Jim Reeves signed with Abbott Records and released singles ‘Red Eyed and Rowdy’ and ‘Beatin’ on the Ding Dong’ – novelty songs at a vast remove from his later work. ‘Mexican Joe’, also released in 1953, was his first song to get into the American Billboard music charts, and lasted twenty-six weeks in the country music top forty, including nine at number one. The song’s Joe was a lovable rogue who spent his time and other people’s money ‘romancin’, dancin’, always on the go’ with the ‘lovely señoritas’ down in Mexico. Despite his wicked ways, he was a popular soul and was welcomed wherever he went with the cry ‘viva la Mexican Joe’. The song was still nothing like the songs of heartache and loss for which Reeves would later become famous; it would eventually be seen as another novelty song in his repertoire – albeit a very popular one.

By the end of 1955, with an RCA recording contract, Reeves had further success with ‘Bimbo’ and ‘Yonder Comes a Sucker’. ‘Bimbo’, another novelty song, was about a young boy with ‘two big bright blue eyes that light up like a star’ and a dog on a rope; it sounded almost like a nursery rhyme but proved to be a huge success. ‘Yonder Comes a Sucker’ dealt with a familiar country music theme – a lover scorned – and achieved moderate success. It was a pointer to the type of song which would soon come to dominate his work.

The song ‘Four Walls’, which in 1957 remained at number one for eight weeks in the American country music charts, marked a major upturn in the singer’s career. Chet Atkins infamously considered it ‘a girl’s song’ and did not rate it as a commercial prospect, but Reeves persisted in recording it. It had the sadness and heartbreak of traditional hard-core country but was delivered in his new, smoother style developed by Atkins – the definition of the Nashville Sound. The singer pines for his lover but is alone with the walls in his house. The song was simple but devastating, establishing a style for his future music and proving to be a crucial stepping stone to his worldwide success.

Jim Reeves became popular in countries where there was little previous tradition of country music; fans in Ireland, Great Britain, Europe, South Africa, Scandinavia, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and India all took to his slick sound. When Reeves toured South Africa he was treated like a rock star and needed police protection; such was his popularity there he recorded an album in Afrikaans – Jy Is My Liefling (You Are My Darling) – and starred in Kimberley Jim, a musical comedy set in the South African gold mines.2

By travelling to countries that had no familiarity with his music, Reeves created new markets; he is the still biggest-selling artist of all time in Sri Lanka. The clarity of his diction and his simple lyrics were central to his international success: speakers of English as a second language could understand the story of his songs more readily than they could follow much of the rock and pop music coming from the United States and Great Britain. The stories were straightforward, heart-wrenching and personal – country songs at their best. The worldwide reach of Reeves’ music is poignantly evidenced on the many tribute websites dedicated to the American singer. A tribute by ‘Leo’ from India is indicative of the feelings many of the contributors express:

I live in India in the city of Madras. Ever since I was seven years old I started listening to the greatest singer who ever lived in this world. His voice is pure as a crystal and soft as velvet. I almost live in him. My day starts with Jim and so do the beautiful starlight nights. I feel so close to him as one of his guitarists was also named Leo. In this modern evil world if there is something that will bring love and peace, it could be only the songs of Jim Reeves. Adios my friends … keep in touch. Leo J. Fernando – Madras, India.3

When Reeves announced a short tour of Ireland and Britain in 1963 there was huge excitement. It was cause for national pride – a reflection of an Ireland coming up in the world after the horrors of the emigration-ravaged 1950s. The year 1963 was mixed for Ireland. On the one hand, there were warnings that the country was heading for bankruptcy, and worries were frequently expressed about the future of the Catholic Church as the number of vocations continued to fall. On the other, the United States president, John F. Kennedy, visited the country to a rapturous welcome. However, despite the power brokers in Irish society viewing Kennedy’s coming as a new dawn, many Irish homes still did not have running water or electricity.

Reeves and his Blue Boys toured Ireland from 30 May to 19 June, except for a short detour to Britain from 10 to 15 June. Their time in Britain was limited because the British Musicians’ Union did not permit them to perform in concert as no reci...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgements
• Preface: ‘Big Tom’ was the King
• Introduction
• 1. Jim Reeves Had to Go but Larry Cunningham Saved the Night
• 2. ‘The Circle is Unbroken’: A Very Short History of American Country Music
• 3. ‘Bringing It All Back Home’: Country Comes to Ireland
• 4. Searching for the Pioneers
• 5. How ‘Big Tom’ became the ‘King’
• 6. Three Queens of Irish Country Music
• 7. The Rise and Rise of ‘Wee’ Daniel O’Donnell
• 8. In the Country of ‘Real’ Country
• 9. Garth Brooks’ Hat Can Sing: Garth Brooks and Ireland
• 10. ‘Your Next Dance Please’: Tripping through the World of Country Music Dancing
• 11. Trying to Keep It Country: The Media and Country Music in Ireland
• 12. Portraits from the Trade
• 13. Born in the USA: The Robert Mizzell Story
• 14. ‘The Lone Ranger of Irish Country Music’: James Kilbane and Country Gospel
• 15. A New Country
• 16. The Past is a Foreign Country Music: The Rise of Nathan Carter
• 17. Forever and Ever: The Enduring Popularity of Irish Country Music
• Endnotes
• Bibliography
• About the Author
• About the Publisher