The 1960s File Feature
This Is It
"This Is It" — Jim Reeves and the Country Gentleman's Pop Reach The Velvet Voice at Mid-Decade In the early spring of 1965, Jim Reeves was not present to wit…
01 The Story
"This Is It" — Jim Reeves and the Country Gentleman's Pop Reach
The Velvet Voice at Mid-Decade
In the early spring of 1965, Jim Reeves was not present to witness this record enter the charts. He had died in a plane crash on July 31, 1964, near Nashville, a tragedy that cut short one of country music's most distinctive careers at its commercial and artistic peak. This Is It was among the posthumous releases that RCA Victor and his estate continued to issue from the substantial catalog Reeves had left behind, and its arrival on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1965 was part of that ongoing wave of posthumous recognition.
Reeves had spent the late 1950s and early 1960s refining an approach to country music that came to be known as the Nashville Sound, a deliberate smoothing of country's rougher edges in favor of lush orchestral arrangements and intimate vocal delivery. His baritone voice, warm and unhurried, suited that approach perfectly. The Nashville Sound, which Reeves helped define, was country music's attempt to capture pop radio audiences who might have been deterred by the genre's more rustic elements.
Building the Posthumous Legacy
The period following Reeves's death was characterized by a remarkable outpouring of commercial success from unreleased material and repackaged recordings. His label and management understood that they were sitting on a catalog of recordings that a grieving and loyal audience would continue to purchase and request. This Is It arrived in that context, a release calculated to extend the catalog's commercial life while giving fans additional material to hold onto.
The practice of posthumous release was not unusual in the mid-1960s record industry, and in Reeves's case the quality of the unreleased material justified the ongoing schedule. His recording sessions had produced material across a range of tempos and moods, giving the estate flexibility in how they sequenced posthumous releases to maintain variety and sustained audience interest.
The Hot 100 Appearance
This Is It appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 on March 13, 1965, peaking at number 88 in its only week on the chart. A single-week Hot 100 appearance at position 88 was modest in pop chart terms, and it reflected the reality that Reeves's primary audience was in the country format, where his recordings continued to perform considerably stronger. The Hot 100 entry was a signal of crossover interest, not the center of the recording's commercial story.
Country records were structured differently from pop releases at this point in chart history. A record that registered even briefly on the Hot 100 was demonstrating genuine crossover reach, and for a posthumous country release the appearance was meaningful evidence that Reeves's recordings were still finding new audiences beyond the dedicated country listening community.
Reeves in the Country Canon
Jim Reeves's recordings from the late 1950s through 1964 represent a consistent and clearly defined artistic vision: country music as intimate communication, delivered in a voice so warm it seemed to address each listener individually. Songs like He'll Have to Go had demonstrated that this vision could produce genuine pop crossover success, and the posthumous releases drew on the same stylistic consistency. His status as one of country music's defining figures of the early 1960s was already secure when this record appeared; the posthumous releases were extensions of an already established legacy.
The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Reeves in 1967, a recognition of his contribution to the genre and to the Nashville Sound specifically. His influence on subsequent generations of country singers, particularly those who favored smooth vocal delivery over the more rugged styles of an earlier era, has been consistent and traceable.
A Gentle Farewell Extended
Each posthumous release was, in a way, another farewell from an artist who had no opportunity to say goodbye on his own terms. This Is It contributed to an extended leave-taking that his audience experienced across the mid-1960s, a gradual acknowledgment that a distinctive voice had gone silent. The recordings themselves made clear what had been lost. Listen to any Reeves recording, including this one, and the warmth and assurance in his delivery make the loss freshly legible even now.
"This Is It" — Jim Reeves's singular moment on the 1960s charts.
02 Song Meaning
The Meaning Behind "This Is It" by Jim Reeves
Finality and the Country Tradition
A title like "This Is It" carries an inherent weight of conclusion. Whether used to describe the fullness of a love that has finally arrived, the moment of commitment to a relationship or a decision, or the recognition that a particular moment defines everything that came before it, the phrase operates as a declaration of arrival. In the context of Jim Reeves's posthumous releases, the title acquired an additional dimension of poignancy that listeners in 1965 could not entirely set aside. The song arrived from beyond the singer's death, carrying the irony of its title into a new emotional register.
Country music has long been comfortable with themes of finality and reckoning, with songs that look backward as much as forward and find meaning in what has passed. Reeves was a master of this emotional territory, and his recordings typically rewarded close attention to the lyrical specifics of situation and feeling they portrayed.
Intimacy as Artistic Method
One of the defining qualities of Jim Reeves's recordings across his career was the intimacy of address. His vocal approach, at a lower volume and closer to conversational in its tone than many of his contemporaries, created the sense of a private communication rather than a public performance. This intimacy was the Nashville Sound's core offering to listeners: the impression that a singer was speaking directly and only to you, in a room rather than on a stage.
For songs that explored the landscape of romantic commitment and emotional arrival, this intimacy was extraordinarily effective. The listener felt addressed personally, included in the moment being described, rather than positioned as an audience member watching a performance. That feeling of inclusion was what made Reeves's recordings resonate so powerfully with audiences who found more theatrical vocal styles distancing.
The Nashville Sound and Its Audience
The Nashville Sound that Reeves helped create in the late 1950s and early 1960s was, among other things, a commercial strategy. Country music's producers and label executives recognized that smoothing the genre's rougher edges could expand its audience substantially, bringing in urban and suburban listeners who associated traditional country with a regionalism they did not share. The orchestral arrangements, the clean studio sound, the controlled vocal delivery, all of these signaled sophistication and accessibility simultaneously.
For the listeners who responded to Reeves specifically, the appeal was both the sound and the sensibility it conveyed. His recordings projected a certain warmth and steadiness, a sense that the man singing was reliable and trustworthy in ways that extended beyond the specific lyrical content. This was a persona carefully cultivated but also genuinely reflective of his artistic temperament.
The Posthumous Dimension
Reading a song like "This Is It" through the knowledge of Reeves's death is unavoidable for listeners who encountered it in 1965. The title becomes double-edged, simultaneously describing the lyrical situation and echoing the finality of the singer's own story. Posthumous recordings carry this additional layer of meaning that the artist could not have intended and that audiences receive nonetheless, connecting the fictional space of the song to the biographical reality of its maker.
This dual resonance is not unique to Reeves, but it was particularly acute for a singer whose persona had been built so thoroughly on personal warmth and directness. The recordings felt personal even when they were not autobiographical, which made the loss of the voice behind them all the more immediate for loyal listeners.
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