Music: Hoedown on a Harpsichord

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First Citizen. Nashville's $35 million trade in country music is supported by a bureaucracy as complex as a vertical trust. There are more than 100 music publishers in the city, more than 200 songwriters, more than 1,000 instrumentalists. The town swarms with so many agents that, remarks a singer, "they just about have to wear badges to keep from booking each other." The kingmakers of Nashville are the big A. & R. men, Columbia's Law, RCA's Chet Atkins, Decca's Owen Bradley, but the first citizen these days is Jim Reeves, 35, an ex-baseball player (Houston Buffalos). Singer Reeves has written about 100 songs and recorded more than 200, a surprising number of which, including Mexican Joe, Bimbo and He'll Have to Go, have been hits. The trick in writing songs, says Reeves, is to "try to use original rhymes and words that have not been beaten to death in other songs." Sample from Reeves's favorite creation, Am I Losing You?:

Will the sweet things you do

Be for somebody new?

Tell me what to do?

Am I losing you?

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