INDEPENDENCE, Kansas (CelebrityAccess) — Legendary promoter and talent manager Jim Halsey, who is celebrating a career that spans 7 decades, was honored by his hometown of Independence, Kansas when the city renamed the 2,000 Memorial Hall auditorium to the Jim Halsey Auditorium.
Halsey, who is now 89, booked hundreds of shows at the historic venue, dating back to 1949.
“This honor means more to me than anything else in my life. To be recognized in my home town that I love dearly is the best thing to ever happen to me,” said Halsey.
Over the course of his career, Jim Halsey has played a key role in the careers of numerous performing artists and he’s managed or booked some of the most recognized names in country music, including Roy Clark, Waylon Jennings, The Judds, Hank Thompson, Merle Haggard, Reba McEntire, Wanda Jackson, Freddy Fender, Roy Orbison, Tammy Wynette, Rick Nelson, Clint Black, Dwight Yoakam, Minnie Pearl, and James Brown as well as his longtime clients The Oak Ridge Boys.
Under his leadership, Halsey helped to make his agency The Jim Halsey Company into a force to be reckoned with in the world of country music and he’s played a significant role in bringing the genre to a worldwide audience. He’s booked sold-out shows at iconic venues such as The Grand Ole Opry, Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall and took Roy Clark and The Oak Ridge Boys on the first-ever tour of the U.S.S.R.
To date, he is the only producer or manager who has ever presented every artist on a single episode of the Hollywood Squares, as well as book his acts in every Las Vegas showroom for an entire week.
More recently, he’s added author to his list of achievements after he published the entertainment-focused business book ‘Starmaker: How To Make It In The Music Business’ and plans to write an autobiography as well.
“My life and interest are really in people and what makes them work and the energy they have,” he said. “If you can observe and notice the energy of a person, then you have the ability to get and use, parts of that energy yourself. So my whole life has been about trying to harness energy — for the good. So I’m still doing it today. The Oak Ridge Boys still exude that energy. I am inspired by them. They are my closest friends in the world, but they are inspirational to me and to a lot of other people, too.”
