B-side I Could Cry Format 7" Length 2:39 | Released March 1953 (U.S.) Genre Country | |
Recorded January 18, 1953
KWKH, Shreveport, Louisiana | ||
"Mexican Joe" is 1953 single by Jim Reeves. Accompanying Jim Reeves on "Mexican Joe" were the Circle O Ranch Boys and was Jim Reeves' debut single on the country charts. "Mexican Joe" hit number one on the country charts for six weeks with a total of twenty six weeks on the chart.
Song background
Featuring "Big" Red Hayes on the fiddle and Floyd Cramer on the piano, "Mexican Joe" was a rollicking, Western swing-influenced tale of a bandito and drifter who engages in a lifestyle of women, carousing and gambling.
Reeves — an announcer on KWKH-AM in Shreveport, Louisiana in the early 1950s — had released several singles prior to "Mexican Joe," but none attained the level of national success needed to reach any of Billboard's country music component charts in use at the time. "Mexican Joe" became Reeves' first major success nationally and would eventually pave the way to superstardom.
As was the case with several of Reeves' early national hits, "Mexican Joe" differed greatly from the smooth ballads — recorded in the style of the Nashville sound, in contrast to those early novelty hits — that he later recorded and made famous, including "Four Walls" and "He'll Have to Go."