Jim Reeves' music legacy still stands, 60 years after fatal plane crash in Nashville

Six decades ago, the life of one Nashville's most iconic musicians was tragically cut short in a plane crash that rocked Music City to its core.

Jim Reeves, a crooner that stood at the intersection of country and pop, died in Nashville on Friday, July 31, 1964 alongside his manager and pianist, Dean Manuel.

Reeves, or "Gentleman Jim," is still known today for hits "He'll Have to Go," "Welcome to My World" and "I Love You Because." A member of The Grand Ole Opry, Reeves recorded "I'm a Hit Again" only days before his death.

By the early 1960s, he'd achieved international fame.

That Friday night in 1964, Reeves and Manuel left Batesville, Arkansas, flying in a single-engine Beechcraft Debonair and heading to Nashville; Reeves piloted the plane.

After being caught in a thunderstorm, towers lost connection with the plane in Nashville and a 44-hour search began.

About 2,000 searchers combed through 20 square miles of rugged terrain.

Fellow country musicians Bill Pursell, Eddy Arnold, Chet Atkins, Ernest Tubb, Stonewall Jackson and Marty Robbins were among the searchers hunting for the wreckage.

Two days later, a member of the Davidson Country Civil Defense rescue team found the wreckage and two bodies.

"Immediately after the wreckage was announced, hundreds of spectators gathered at the scene, blocking Franklin Road traffic," wrote Tennessean reporters Jerry Thompson and Frank Sutherland on Aug. 3, 1964.

"Famed country music singer Jim Reeves and a companion were found dead yesterday in the charred wreckage of a small private plane in a wooded area 400 yards east of Franklin Road near Brentwood," The Tennessean reported.

Reeves, who died at 39 years old, left behind his wife, Mary, and a community of fans and fellows musicians in Nashville who mourned his loss.

Jim Reeves' country music still influence felt today

"I mean, think right now one if one of the biggest stars in Nashville suddenly died," said Michael McCall, the associate director of editorial at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

"It was exactly what happened then," he said. "He was really the one of the biggest stars in country music."

His smooth voice made him one of the practitioners of the "Nashville Sound," a style that blended the smooth, crooning pop music of the time with country music, leveling out the rough honky-tonk sounds.

"He came to Nashville in the 1950s and he had such a rich, resonant voice at a time when country music started smoothing itself out, in some ways, to attract a larger audience," McCall said.

"Reeves had a lot of hits that were both on pop radio and in country radio, so he was part of Nashville's expansion of country music into that area," he said.

Reeves' legacy is felt today in much of the country-pop crossovers we still see — Jelly Roll and Florida Georgia Line are two pop-country artists McCall pointed to.

"The pop music market is different today than it was for him, so they're not smooth crooners like they were in the '60s," McCall said. "But in the same way, they're taking elements from pop music into country music."

Reeves was a "visionary," McCall said, looking ahead to expand the country music audience.

To learn more about Jim Reeves, head to countrymusichalloffame.org .

Audrey Gibbs is a music reporter at The Tennessean. You can reach her at agibbs@tennessean.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Jim Reeves' music legacy still stands, 60 years after fatal plane crash in Nashville