James Thomas “Jim” Nesbitt Jr., who shared the road and dusty honky-tonk stages with the likes of Conway Twitty, Stonewall Jackson and Dottie West, died Nov. 29 at his home in Florence, S.C. He was 75.
MCT NEWS SERVICE
December 6, 2007
The comedian, DJ and country musician was born Dec. 1, 1931, in Bishopville.
Mr. Nesbitt's career reached its height in the 1960s when he was a rare hybrid performer, a musician who could carry a tune and tell a good joke.
He began his career with WFEG in 1949 before moving to WJMX. He found a home at WAGS, where he recorded his first hit, “Please Mr. Kennedy,” in 1961. It reached No. 1 on Billboard's country chart.
“Running Bare,” “A Tiger in My Tank” and “Truckin' Cat With Nine Wives” are other Nesbitt favorites.
Jim Jenkins, the owner of WAGS, said the station still gets requests for Mr. Nesbitt's music. In October, the station honored him at WAGSFEST, its annual music festival.
“I got to visit with him a little bit,” Jenkins said. “I always liked him as an artist.”
As a teen in Maryland, Jenkins was a fan of “Lookin' For More in '64,” one of several “year” songs Mr. Nesbitt wrote with sarcastic, poor-man wit.
“It was one of the songs you remember,” Jenkins said. “I never knew who did it and I bought WAGS radio and asked 'Who did that song?' ”
Bruce Elrod of Cashbox magazine, a chart magazine similar to Billboard, said Mr. Nesbitt scored 13 Billboard hits and 15 Cashbox hits. In 1999, Elrod and Lost Gold Records, a South Carolina label, released “The Best of Jim Nesbitt,” a collection of country comedy songs. Another album, “Phone Call From the Devil,” was rereleased in 2000.
“He was a South Carolina legend,” Elrod said. “Jim was actually the king of country comedy. And he was clean.”
In other words, without Mr. Nesbitt and fellow country comedian Jerry Clower, there might not be Jeff Foxworthy or Larry the Cable Guy.
Anne Rochelle, a bass player in Mr. Nesbitt's band, said she was able to meet a lot of the great traditional country singers, such as Sonny James, Marty Robbins and Twitty, on the road with Mr. Nesbitt.
“We played on the package tours,” she said. “I got to know a lot of them.”
Tim Nesbitt will remember a good father who was an irrepressible jokester. “He was a normal father other than he always played jokes,” Tim Nesbitt said. “There was never a dull moment. He liked to make people laugh.
“That was his personality all the way to the end."
