JIM McCOY –Touches Your Heart
Trouble In Amen Corner – Farmer and the Lord – If Jesus Came To Your Home – Pappy’s Old Banjo – Preacherman – Barefoot Country Boy – Roses For Momma – 100 Dollar Bill Story – God’s Wonderful Way – Touch of the Master’s Hand – Little Boy’s Prayer – Third Man
West Virginia troubadour Jim McCoy has been close to country music all his life. This is the guy that ‘discovered’ Patsy Cline. Jim was doing a radio show in West Virginia when Patsy was trying to find a place to sing. Sure enough she showed up at Jim’s door, and it didn’t take him long to ask her to come sing on his radio show. She did, and he did too. Together they became the most popular show in West Virginia. Patsy Cline had a very distinctive voice. So does Jim McCoy. Not just for singin’ neither. Jim McCoy has another facet to his voice. He is one of those original recitation artists that command your attention the very instant he begins to tell you a story. Many might remember Red Sovine as the master of ‘recitation’ story telling. It’s true, Red Sovine did the incredibly popular “Teddy Bear.” That particular record made Red Sovine famous, but Red, like Jim McCoy, was also a great country music singer. Likewise, Jim McCoy has a great country voice, but is also a distinctive recitationist. This particular CD is devoted to stories and poetry devoted to Jesus Christ, our Savior and Salvation. As a matter of fact, Jim and Red were well on the way to doing a joint release when Sovine died in an untimely car accident. Can you imagine what kind of super-recitation CD could have came from that. The kind of recitations that Jim does today, takes us back to another time, another place, when laments of the heart were so very meaningful. Today, we do not hear this kind of sincere presentation of how to deal with death, how to deal with bad luck, how to deal with lost love, how to deal with the coming of the Lord. It all goes right back to the real ‘country.’ And by ‘country’ I mean rural America. A ‘place’ that hardly exists today. A ‘place’ where honesty, hard work, dedication, friendship, and devotion to the Lord Jesus was (and still is out in the ‘real’ country) a daily part of our lives. Of course these sentimental recitations wouldn’t mean much to an urban mind. It’s a kind of philosophy that hardly exists today. The bottom line, especially the way Jim McCoy presents this message, is that it’s the “Truth.” Each and every one of these stories is kind of heart rending, and each and every one of them has a moral. Another area that is so lacking in today’s country music for instance. Jim McCoy is a dedicated man. He’s in America’s Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame. He still does a dedication tribute to Patsy Cline every year over Labor Day. He does it at his own recording-studio watering hole called the ‘Troubadour’ in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. This particular CD was released on his own record label, Troubadour Records. It takes a very special person with a very special voice to make the listener ‘listen’ to every word. That’s what Jim McCoy does on this very wonderful CD. Background music is also very ‘country’ in every respect, and although we do not know who the players are, they are great instrumentalists. This CD is part of a Historical Series that has been directly recorded off of the original cassette tape and has not been remastered in order to give the listener the authentic (vintage) quality of the original recording.
You can purchase this recording direct from Troubadour Records, 25 Troubadour Lane, Berkeley Springs, West Virginia 25411
Bob Everhart