George Jones
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George Jones | |
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Born | George Glenn Jones September 12, 1931 Saratoga, Texas, U.S. |
Died | April 26, 2013 Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. | (aged 81)
Resting place | Woodlawn Memorial Park |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1953–2013 |
Spouses | Dorothy Bonvillion
(m. 1950; div. 1951)Shirley Ann Corley
(m. 1954; div. 1968)Nancy Sepulvado (m. 1983) |
Children | 4 |
Musical career | |
Also known as | King George, Thumper Jones, The Possum, No Show Jones, "The Rolls-Royce of Country Music" |
Genres | |
Instrument(s) |
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Labels | |
Website | www |
Military Service | |
Allegiance | United States |
Service/ | United States Marine Corps |
Years of service | 1951–1953 |
Rank | Private |
Awards | National Defense Service Medal |
George Glenn Jones (September 12, 1931 – April 26, 2013) was an American
His earliest musical influences were Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe[citation needed], although the artistry of Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell helped to crystallize his vocal style[citation needed]. He served in the United States Marine Corps and was discharged in 1953. In 1959, Jones recorded "White Lightning", written by The Big Bopper, which launched his career as a singer. Years of alcoholism compromised his health and led to his missing many performances, earning him the nickname "No Show Jones".[4] Jones died in 2013, aged 81, from hypoxic respiratory failure.
Life and career
Early years (1931–1953)
George Glenn Jones was born on September 12, 1931, in Saratoga, Texas, and was raised with a brother and five sisters in Colmesneil, Texas, in the Big Thicket region of southeast Texas.[5] His father, George Washington Jones, worked in a shipyard and played harmonica and guitar; his mother, Clara (née Patterson), played piano in the Pentecostal Church on Sundays.[6] When Jones was born, one of the doctors dropped him and broke his arm.[6] He heard country music for the first time when he was seven, when his parents bought a radio. Jones recalled to Billboard in 2006 that he would lie in bed with his parents on Saturday nights listening to the Grand Ole Opry, and would insist that his mother wake him if he fell asleep so that he could hear Roy Acuff or Bill Monroe.
In his autobiography I Lived To Tell It All, Jones recalled that the early death of his sister Ethel worsened his father's drinking problem, which caused him to be physically and emotionally abusive to his wife and children. In his biography George Jones: The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Legend, Bob Allen recounts how George Washington Jones would return home drunk in the middle of the night with his cronies, wake up his terrified son and demand that he sing for them or face a beating. In a
He left home at 16 and went to
First recordings (1954–1957)
Jones married Shirley Ann Corley in 1954. His first record, the self-penned "No Money in This Deal", was recorded on January 19 and was released in February on Starday Records. This began Jones's association with producer and mentor H.W. "Pappy" Daily. The song was cut in the living room of Starday Records' co-founder Jack Starnes, who produced it. Around this time Jones also worked at KTRM (now KZZB) in Beaumont. Deejay Gordon Baxter told Nick Tosches that Jones had acquired the nickname "possum" while working there. During his early recording sessions, Daily admonished Jones for attempting to sound too much like his heroes Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell. In 1996 Jones recalled to NPR that the quality of production at Starday was poor. "It was a terrible sound. We recorded in a small living room of a house on a highway near Beaumont. You could hear the trucks. We had to stop a lot of times because it wasn't soundproof, it was just egg crates nailed on the wall and the big old semi trucks would go by and make a lot of noise and we'd have to start over again." Jones's first hit came with "Why Baby Why" in 1955, and in that year, while touring as a cast member of the Louisiana Hayride, Jones met and played shows with Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. In 1994, Jones told Nick Tosches that Presley "stayed pretty much with his friends around him in his dressing room". Jones remained a lifelong friend of Johnny Cash, and was invited to sing at the Grand Ole Opry in 1956.
With Presley's explosion in popularity in 1956, pressure was put on Jones to cut some rockabilly sides. He reluctantly agreed, but his heart was not in it and he quickly regretted his decision. He joked later in his autobiography, "When I've encountered those records I've used them for Frisbees." He told Billboard in 2006: "I was desperate. When you're hungry, a poor man with a house full of kids, you're gonna do some things you ordinarily wouldn't do. I said, 'Well, hell, I'll try anything once.' I tried 'Dadgum It How Come It' and 'Rock It', a bunch of shit. I didn't want my name on the rock and roll thing, so I told them to put Thumper Jones on it and if it did something, good, if it didn't, hell, I didn't want to be shamed with it." He unsuccessfully attempted to buy all the masters to keep the cuts from surfacing later, which they did.[8]
Jones moved to Mercury in 1957, teamed up with singer Jeannette Hicks, the first of several duet partners he would have over the years, and had another top-10 single with "Yearning". Starday Records merged with Mercury that year, and Jones was rated highly on the charts with his debut Mercury release, "Don't Stop the Music". Although he was garnering a lot of attention, and his singles were making very respectable showings on the charts, he was still travelling the black-top roads in a 1940s Packard with his name and phone number on the side, playing the "blood bucket" circuit of honky-tonks that dotted the rural countryside.[6]
Commercial breakout (1959–1964)
In 1959, Jones had his first number one on the Billboard country chart with "
Jones had early success as a songwriter. He wrote or co-wrote many of his biggest hits during this period, several of which became standards, such as "
Jones signed with United Artists in 1962, and immediately scored one of the biggest hits of his career, "She Thinks I Still Care". His voice had grown deeper during this period, and he began cultivating his own singing style. During his stint with UA, Jones recorded albums of Hank Williams and Bob Wills songs, and cut an album of duets with Melba Montgomery, including the hit "We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds". Jones was also gaining a reputation as a hell-raiser. In his Rolling Stone tribute, Merle Haggard recalled:
- "I met him at the Blackboard Café in Bakersfield, California, which was the place to go in '61. He was already famous for not showing up or showing up drunk, and he showed up drunk. I was onstage – I think I was singing Marty Robbins' 'Devil Woman' – and he kicked the doors of the office open and said 'Who the fuck is that?' It was one of the greatest compliments of my entire life when George Jones said I was his favorite country singer ... In 1967, I released a ballad called "I Threw Away The Rose" and he was so impressed he actually jumped ship and left his tour, rented a Lear Jet and came to Amarillo, Texas. He told me my low note changed his life. "[9]
Jones was always backed by the Jones Boys on tour. Like Buck Owens's Buckaroos and Merle Haggard's Strangers, Jones worked with many talented musicians, including Dan Schafer,[10] Hank Singer, Brittany Allyn, Sonny Curtis, Kent Goodson, Bobby Birkhead, and Steve Hinson. In the 1980s and 1990s, bass player Ron Gaddis served as the Jones Boys' bandleader and sang harmony with Jones in concert. Lorrie Morgan (who married Gaddis) also toured as a backup singer for Jones in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Johnny Paycheck was the Jones Boys' bass player in the 1960s before going on to his own stardom in the 1970s.[citation needed]
Alcoholism and decline (1964–1979)
In 1964, Pappy Daily secured a new contract with Musicor records. For the rest of the 1960s, Jones scored only one number one (1967's "Walk Through This World With Me"), but he featured often in the country music charts. Significant hits included "Love Bug" (a nod to Buck Owens and the Bakersfield sound), "Things Have Gone to Pieces", "The Race Is On", "My Favorite Lies", "I'll Share My World with You", "Take Me" (which he co-wrote and later recorded with Tammy Wynette), "A Good Year for the Roses", and "If My Heart Had Windows". Jones's singing style had by now evolved from the full-throated, high lonesome sound of Hank Williams and Roy Acuff on his early Starday records to the more refined, subtle style of Lefty Frizzell. In a 2006 interview with Billboard, Jones acknowledged the fellow Texan's influence on his idiosyncratic phrasing: "I got that from Lefty. He always made five syllables out of one word."
Jones's binge drinking and use of amphetamines on the road caught up to him in 1967, and he had to be admitted into a neurological hospital to seek treatment for his drinking. Jones would go to extreme lengths for a drink if the thirst was on him. A drinking story concerning Jones occurred while he was married to his second wife Shirley Corley. Jones recalled Shirley trying to prevent him from travelling to Beaumont, 8 miles away, to buy liquor. She said she hid the keys to all their cars, but she did not hide the keys to the lawn mower. He wrote in his memoir: "There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine under a seat. A key glistening in the ignition. I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did."[11] Years later Jones comically mocked the incident by making a cameo in the video for "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" by Hank Williams Jr. He also parodied the episode in the 1993 video for "One More Last Chance" by Vince Gill and in his own music video for the single "Honky Tonk Song" in 1996. Tammy Wynette, in her 1979 autobiography Stand By Your Man, claimed the incident occurred while she was married to Jones. She said she woke at one in the morning to find her husband gone. "I got into the car and drove to the nearest bar 10 miles away. When I pulled into the parking lot, there sat our rider-mower right by the entrance. He'd driven that mower right down a main highway... He looked up and saw me and said, ‘Well, fellas, here she is now. My little wife, I told you she'd come after me.’"[12] Jones had become aware of Tammy Wynette because their tours were booked by the same agency and their paths sometimes crossed. Wynette was married to songwriter Don Chapel, who was also the opening act for her shows, and the three became friends. Jones married Wynette in 1969.
They began touring together, and Jones bought out his contract with Musicor so that he could record with Wynette and her producer Billy Sherrill on Epic Records after she had split with longtime producer Pappy Daily. In the early 1970s, Jones and Wynette became known as "Mr. & Mrs. Country Music" and scored several big hits, including "We're Gonna Hold On", "Let's Build A World Together", "Golden Ring" and "Near You". When asked about recording Jones and Wynette, Sherill told Dan Daley in 2002, "We started out trying to record the vocals together, but George drove Tammy crazy with his phrasing. He never, ever did it the same way twice. He could make a five-syllable word out of 'church.' Finally, Tammy said, 'Record George and let me listen to it, and then do my vocal after we get his on tape.' "
In October 1970, shortly after the birth of their only child Tamala Georgette, Jones was straitjacketed and committed to a padded cell at the Watson Clinic in Lakeland, Florida, after a drunken bender. He was kept there for 10 days to detoxify, before being released with a prescription for Librium. Jones managed to stay sober with Wynette for long periods, but as the decade wore on, his drinking and erratic behavior worsened and they divorced in 1976. Jones accepted responsibility for the failure of the marriage, but denied Wynette's allegations in her autobiography that he had beaten her and fired a shotgun at her. Jones and Wynette continued playing shows and drawing crowds after their divorce, as fans began to see their songs mirroring their stormy relationship. In 1980, they recorded the album Together Again and scored a hit with "Two Story House". In the 2019 Ken Burns documentary Country Music, Jones and Wynette were compared to "two wounded animals". Jones also spoke of his hopes for a reconciliation, and would jokingly reference Wynette in some of his songs - during performances of his 1981 hit "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)" he would sing "Tammy's memory will" - but the recriminations continued. Jones and Wynette appeared to make peace in the 1990s, and recorded a final album, One, and toured together again before Wynette's death in 1998. In 1995, Jones told Country Weekly, "Like the old saying goes, it takes time to heal things and they've been healed quite a while."
Jones's pairing with Billy Sherrill at Epic Records came as a surprise to many; Sherrill and business partner
In the late 1970s, Jones spiraled out of control. Already drinking constantly, a manager named Shug Baggot introduced him to cocaine before a show because he was too tired to perform. The drug increased Jones's already considerable paranoia. During one drunken binge, he shot at, and very nearly hit, his friend and occasional songwriting partner Earl "Peanutt" Montgomery after Montgomery had quit drinking after finding religion. He was often penniless and acknowledged in his autobiography that Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash came to his financial aid during this time. Jones also began missing shows at an alarming rate and lawsuits from promoters started piling up. In 1978, owing Wynette $36,000 in child support and claiming to be $1 million in debt, he filed for bankruptcy. Jones appeared incoherent at times, speaking in quarrelling voices that he would later call "the Duck" and "the Old Man". In his article "The Devil In George Jones", Nick Tosches states, "By February 1979, he was homeless, deranged, and destitute, living in his car and barely able to digest the junk food on which he subsisted. He weighed under a hundred pounds, and his condition was so bad that it took him more than two years to complete My Very Special Guests, an album on which Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, Elvis Costello, and other famous fans came to his vocal aid and support. Jones entered Hillcrest Psychiatric Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. Upon his release in January 1980, the first thing he did was pick up a six-pack."
Jones often displayed a sheepish, self-deprecating sense of humor regarding his dire financial standing and bad reputation. In June 1979, he appeared with Waylon Jennings on Ralph Emery's syndicated radio program, and at one point Jennings cracked, "It's lonely at the top." A laughing Jones replied, "It's lonely at the bottom, too! It's real, real lonely, Waylon." Despite his chronic unreliability, Jones was still capable of putting on a captivating live show. On Independence Day, 1976, he appeared at Willie Nelson's Fourth of July Picnic in Gonzales, Texas, in front of 80,000 younger, country-rock oriented fans. A nervous Jones felt out of his comfort zone and nearly bolted from the festival, but went on anyway and wound up stealing the show. The Houston Post wrote, "He was the undisputed star of this year's Willie Nelson picnic...one of the greatest." Penthouse called him "the spirit of country music, plain and simple, its Holy Ghost". The Village Voice added, "As a singer he is as intelligent as they come, and should be considered for a spot in America's all-time top ten." Jones began missing more shows than he made, however, including several highly publicized dates at the Bottom Line club in New York City. Former vice president of CBS Records Rick Blackburn recalls in the 1989 video Same Ole Me that the event had been hyped for weeks, with a lot of top press and cast members from Saturday Night Live planning to attend. "We'd made our plans, travel arrangements, and so forth. George excused himself from my office, left – and we didn't see him for three weeks. He just did not show up." Much like Hank Williams, Jones seemed suspicious of success and furiously despised perceived slights and condescension directed towards the music that he loved so dearly. When he finally played the Bottom Line in 1980, the New York Times called him "the finest, most riveting singer in country music".
Comeback (1980–1990)
This section possibly contains original research. (March 2017) |
By 1980, Jones had not had a number-one single in six years, and many critics began to write him off. However, the singer stunned the music industry in April when "He Stopped Loving Her Today" was released and shot to number one on the country charts, remaining there for 18 weeks. The song, written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman, tells the story of a man whose lover leaves him, but he vows to love her until he dies in hopes that she returns; she eventually returns, along with the singer, at the man's funeral, described in poetic terms. Jones's interpretation, buoyed by his delivery of the line "first time I'd seen him smile in years," gives it a mournful, gripping realism. It is consistently voted as one of the greatest country songs of all time, along with "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams and "Crazy" by Patsy Cline.[13][14] Jones, who personally hated the song and considered it morbid, ultimately gave the song credit for reviving his flagging career, stating, "a four-decade career had been salvaged by a three-minute song".[15] Jones earned the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 1980. The Academy of Country Music awarded the song Single of the Year and Song of the Year in 1980. It also became the Country Music Association's Song of the Year in both 1980 and 1981.
The success of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" led CBS Records to renew Jones's recording contract and sparked new interest in the singer. He was the subject of an hour-and-a-quarter-long HBO television special entitled George Jones: With a Little Help from His Friends, which had him performing songs with Waylon Jennings, Elvis Costello,
In 1981, Jones met Nancy Sepulvado, a 34-year-old divorcée from Mansfield, Louisiana. Sepulvado's positive impact on Jones's life and career cannot be overstated.[17] She eventually cleaned up his finances, kept him away from his drug dealers (who reportedly kidnapped her daughter in retaliation), and managed his career. Jones always gave her complete credit for saving his life. Nancy, who did not drink, explained to Nick Tosches in 1994, "He was drinking but he was fun to be around. It wasn't love at first sight or anything like that. But I saw what a good person he was, deep down, and I couldn't help caring about him." Jones managed to quit cocaine, but went on a drunken rampage in Alabama in fall 1983, and was once again straitjacketed and committed to Hillcrest Psychiatric Hospital suffering from malnutrition and delusions.[citation needed] By that time, though, physically and emotionally exhausted, he really did want to quit drinking. In March 1984 in Birmingham, Alabama – at the age of 52 – Jones performed his first sober show since the early '70s. "All my life it seems like I've been running from something," he told the United Press International in June. "If I knew what it was, maybe I could run in the right direction, but I always seem to end up going the other way." Jones began making up many of the dates he had missed, playing them for free to pay back promoters, and began opening his concerts with "No Show Jones", a song he had written with Glen Martin that poked fun at himself and other country singers. Jones always stressed that he was not proud of the way he treated loved ones and friends over the years, and was ashamed of disappointing his fans when he missed shows, telling Billboard in 2006, "I know it hurt my fans in a way and I've always been sad about that, it really bothered me for a long time."
Mostly sober for the rest of the 1980s, Jones consistently released albums with Sherrill producing, including Shine On, Jones Country, You've Still Got A Place In My Heart, Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes, Wine Colored Roses (an album Jones would tell Jolene Downs in 2001 was one of his personal favorites), Too Wild Too Long, and One Woman Man. Jones's video for his 1985 hit "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes" won the CMA award for Video of the Year (Billy Sherrill makes a cameo as the bus driver).
Later years and death (1990–2013)
In 1990, Jones released his last proper studio album on Epic, You Oughta Be Here With Me. Although the album featured several stirring performances, including the lead single "Hell Stays Open All Night Long" and the
While Jones remained committed to "pure country", he worked with the top producers and musicians of the day and the quality of his work remained high. Some of his significant performances include "I Must Have Done Something Bad", "Wild Irish Rose", "Billy B. Bad" (a sarcastic jab at country music establishment trendsetters), "A Thousand Times A Day", "When The Last Curtain Falls", and the novelty "High-Tech Redneck". Jones's most popular song in his later years was "Choices", the first single from his 1999 studio album Cold Hard Truth. A video was also made for the song, and Jones won another Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. The song was at the center of controversy when the Country Music Association invited Jones to perform it on the awards show, but required that he perform an abridged version. Jones refused and did not attend the show. Alan Jackson was disappointed with the association's decision, and halfway through his own performance during the show, he signaled to his band and played part of Jones's song in protest.
On March 6, 1999, Jones was involved in an accident when he crashed his
On March 29, 2012, Jones was taken to the hospital with an upper respiratory infection.
Jones was scheduled to perform his final concert at the
Jones was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Nashville. His death made headlines all over the world; many country stations (as well as a few of other formats, such as oldies/classic hits) abandoned or modified their playlists and played his songs throughout the day.
Legacy
Jones tirelessly defended the integrity of country music, telling Billboard in 2006, "It's never been for love of money. I thank God for it because it makes me a living. But I sing because I love it, not because of the dollar signs."[33] Jones also went out of his way to promote younger country singers that he felt were as passionate about the music as he was. "Everybody knows he's a great singer," Alan Jackson stated in 1995, "but what I like most about George is that when you meet him, he is like some old guy that works down at the gas station...even though he's a legend!"[This quote needs a citation]
Shortly after Jones's death, Andrew Mueller wrote about his influence in Uncut, "He was one of the finest interpretive singers who ever lifted a microphone...There cannot be a single country songwriter of the last 50-odd years who has not wondered what it might be like to hear their words sung by that voice."[34] In an article for The Texas Monthly in 1994, Nick Tosches eloquently described the singer's vocal style: "While he and his idol, Hank Williams, have both affected generations with a plaintive veracity of voice that has set them apart, Jones has an additional gift—a voice of exceptional range, natural elegance, and lucent tone. Gliding toward high tenor, plunging toward deep bass, the magisterial portamento of his onward-coursing baritone emits white-hot sparks and torrents of blue, investing his poison love songs with a tragic gravity and inflaming his celebrations of the honky-tonk ethos with the hellfire of abandon."[35] In an essay printed in The New Republic, David Hajdu writes:
- "Jones had a handsome and strange voice. His singing was always partly about the appeal of the tones he produced, regardless of the meaning of the words. In this sense, Jones had something in common with singers of formal music and opera, though his means of vocal production were radically different from theirs. He sang from the back of his throat, rather than from deep in his diaphragm. He tightened his larynx to squeeze sound out. He clenched his jaw, instead of wriggling it free. He forced wind through his teeth, and the notes sounded weirdly beautiful."[36]
David Cantwell recalled in 2013, "His approach to singing, he told me once, was to call up those memories and feelings of his own that most closely corresponded to those being felt by the character in whatever song he was performing. He was a kind of singing method actor, creating an illusion of the real."[37] In the liner notes to Essential George Jones: The Spirit of Country Rich Kienzle states, "Jones sings of people and stories that are achingly human. He can turn a ballad into a catharsis by wringing every possible emotion from it, making it a primal, strangled cry of anguish". In 1994, country music historian Colin Escott pronounced, "Contemporary country music is virtually founded on reverence for George Jones. Walk through a room of country singers and conduct a quick poll, George nearly always tops it."[This quote needs a citation] Waylon Jennings expressed a similar opinion in his song "It's Alright": "If we all could sound like we wanted to, we'd all sound like George Jones."[38] In the wake of Jones's death, Merle Haggard pronounced in Rolling Stone, "His voice was like a Stradivarius violin: one of the greatest instruments ever made."[39] Emmylou Harris wrote, "When you hear George Jones sing, you are hearing a man who takes a song and makes it a work of art—always,"[35] a quote that appeared on the sleeve of Jones's 1976 album The Battle.
Several country music stars praised Jones in the documentary Same Ole Me. Randy Travis said, "It sounds like he's lived every minute of every word that he sings and there's very few people who can do that." Tom T. Hall said, "It was always Jones who got the message across just right." Roy Acuff said, "I'd give anything if I could sing like George Jones." In the same film, producer Billy Sherrill states, "All I did was change the instrumentation around him. I don't think he's changed at all."
In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Jones at No. 24 on their list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.[40]
Jones was the subject of the second season of the podcast Cocaine and Rhinestones, which contends Jones is the greatest country music singer ever.[41][42]
Influence beyond country music
Unlike some of his contemporaries, Jones painstakingly adhered to country music. He never reached the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 and almost never had any of his music played on mainstream popular music stations in his career, but, ironically, without even trying, Jones's unabashed loyalty to strictly country arrangements attracted the admiration of musicians and songwriters from a wide range of genres. In an often-quoted tribute, Frank Sinatra called Jones "the second-best singer in America". In a Rolling Stone interview in 1969, Bob Dylan was asked what he thought was the best song released in the previous year, and he replied, "George Jones had one called 'Small Time Laboring Man'," and in his autobiography Chronicles, Dylan states that in the early 1960s, he was largely unimpressed by what he heard on the radio, and admits "Outside of maybe George Jones, I didn't listen to country music either." Country rock pioneer Gram Parsons was an avid George Jones fan and covered Jones's song "That's All It Took" on his first solo album. In the documentary Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel, famous rock groupie Pamela Des Barres recalls seeing Parsons singing Jones's song "She Once Lived Here" at an empty Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles: "It was my peak, peak moment, not sitting on Jimmy Page's amp...that was my peak moment." Parsons reignited Keith Richards' interest in country music in the early '70s, and after Jones's death in 2013, the guitarist wrote, "He possessed the most touching voice, the most expressive ways of projecting that beautiful instrument of anyone I can call to mind. You heard his heart in every note he sang." Richards recorded "Say It's Not You" with Jones for The Bradley Barn Sessions in 1994, and recalls in his autobiography hearing him sing for the first time when the Rolling Stones and Jones were on the same show in Texas in 1964: "They trailed in with tumbleweed following them, as if tumbleweed was their pet. Dust all over the place, a bunch of cowboys, but when George got up, we went whoa, there's a master up there." In the documentary The History of Rock 'N' Roll, Mick Jagger also cites Jones as one of his favorite country singers.
Duets
Jones was one of the greatest harmony singers in country music, and released many duets over the course of his long career. While his songs with Tammy Wynette are his most celebrated, Jones claimed in his autobiography that he felt his duets with Melba Montgomery were his best. Jones also recorded duet albums with Gene Pitney and his former bass player Johnny Paycheck. George's record with Paycheck, 1980's Double Trouble, is one of his most atypical records, and features him giving credible performances on numbers such as "Maybelline" and "You Better Move On". Jones also recorded the duet albums My Very Special Guests (1979), A Taste of Yesterday's Wine with Merle Haggard (1982), Ladies Choice (1984), Friends In High Places (1991), The Bradley Barn Sessions (1994), God's Country: George Jones And Friends (2006), a second album with Merle Haggard called Kickin' Out The Footlights...Again (2006), and Burn Your Playhouse Down (2008).
Discography
Number-one country hits
- "White Lightning" (1959)
- "Tender Years" (1961)
- "She Thinks I Still Care" (1962)
- "Walk Through This World with Me" (1967)
- "We're Gonna Hold On" (with Tammy Wynette) (1973)
- "The Grand Tour" (1974)
- "The Door" (1975)
- "Golden Ring" (with Tammy Wynette) (1976)
- "Near You" (with Tammy Wynette) (1977)
- "He Stopped Loving Her Today" (1980)
- "Still Doin' Time" (1981)
- "Yesterday's Wine" (with Merle Haggard) (1982)
- "I Always Get Lucky with You" (1983)
See also
- Academy of Country Music
- Country Music Association
- Inductees of the Country Music Hall of Fame(1992 inductee)
- List of best-selling music artists
- List of country musicians
References
- ^ "About George Jones". Country Music Television. Archived from the original on February 18, 2015. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
- ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "George Jones Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved April 10, 2012.
- ^ Yorke, Jeffrey (July 30, 1984). "Jammed Jamboree". Washington Post. Retrieved December 25, 2022.
- The Boot. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
- ^ Jones & Carter 1996, p. 16.
- ^ a b c d e Skinker, Chris (February 17, 1998). "George Jones". Country Music Television. Archived from the original on November 10, 2013. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
- ISBN 0-87930-760-9.
- ^ Waddell, Ray (April 26, 2013). "George Jones: The Billboard Interview (2006)". Billboard. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
- ^ Haggard, Merle (May 6, 2013). "Merle Haggard Remembers George Jones". Rolling Stone. Retrieved February 5, 2017.
- ^ Ashley, Tim. "Dan Schafer Artist performances". Tripod. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
- ^ Jones & Carter 1996, pp. 112–113.
- ^ Wynette, Tammy; Dew, Joan (1979). Stand By Your Man. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 200.
- ^ Powell, Mike (June 1, 2014). "100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time: 4. George Jones, 'He Stopped Loving Her Today' (1980)". Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
- ^ "Top Ten Best Country Songs of All Time: 1. He Stopped Loving Her Today - George Jones". The Top Tens. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
- ^ Jones & Carter 1996, p. 253.
- ^ Drunk Country Singer George "The Possum" Jones arrest, retrieved January 4, 2023
- ^ Schmitt, Brad. "Nancy Jones: God sent me to save George Jones". The Tennessean. Retrieved January 4, 2023.
- ^ Ryan, Joal (March 19, 1999). "George Jones Cheats Death". E! Online. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
- ^ a b Mellen, Kim (October 22, 1999). "No-Show Jones". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
- ^ "Past Judges". Independent Music Awards. Archived from the original on July 13, 2011. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
- ^ "News". George Jones. Archived from the original on April 25, 2013. Retrieved April 28, 2013.
- ^ Haggard, Merle (February 2, 2012). "Lifetime Achievement Award: George Jones". Grammy.com. Archived from the original on February 11, 2012. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
- ^ "George Jones Hospitalized with Upper Respiratory Infection". Webster & Associates. March 29, 2012. Archived from the original on October 2, 2013. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
- ^ "George Jones Admitted into Nashville Hospital". Webster & Associates. May 21, 2012. Archived from the original on October 2, 2013. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
- ^ "George Jones Released from Hospital". Webster & Associates. May 26, 2012. Archived from the original on October 2, 2013. Retrieved May 16, 2012.
- ^ "George Jones Announces the Grand Tour in 2013". Webster & Associates. August 14, 2012. Archived from the original on October 2, 2013. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
- ^ "Country Music Icon George Jones Announces Final Nashville Concert of Career". Webster & Associates. November 12, 2012. Archived from the original on October 2, 2013. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
- ^ Grossberg, Josh (April 19, 2013). "George Jones Hospitalized in Nashville". E! Online. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
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- ^ Mueller, Andrew (July 2013). "George Jones: 1931-2013 — "He could make you cry with his voice..."". Rock's Back Pages. Retrieved October 5, 2023.
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Works cited
- Jones, George; Carter, Tom (1996). I Lived to Tell it All. Villard. ISBN 978-0-679-43869-4.
Further reading
- ISBN 0-375-70082-X..
- ISBN 0-292-71096-8..
- Joel Whitburn's Top Country Songs, 1944 to 2005, Record Research, Menomonee Falls, WI, 2005, ISBN 0-89820-165-9.