George Jones ball cap

Well, it's not an exciting blog entry this time around...I thought i'd show-off a ball cap that was bought at a George Jones concert in 1988 or 1989. I didn't buy this...my grandparent's had went to George and Conway's concert in Columbus and this was one of the souvenir's they bought. My grandfather wore this hat for years. The hat is named after George's 1987 album, Too Wild Too Long of course.


"I'd like to thank, uh, Kitty Wells and Johnny Wright...". George was on stage at the CMA awards in 1980, or, 1981...totally caught off-guard when his name was called for Male Vocalist of the Year and as he went up on stage to get the award he grinned and there was some silence and he looked out into the audience and thanked Kitty Wells and Johnny Wright before exiting the stage...leaving some confused and some in fits of laughter and some heaping a lot of applause. It was recounted in the biographies of George in the early 1980's and it was written about in George's autobiography in 1996. George, it was revealed, was under the influence that night and didn't know what to say when he went up on stage. According to George he saw Kitty and Johnny sitting out there in audience and so he thanked them, which annoyed the staff at Epic/CBS. According to an article I saw concerning Rick Blackburn, he confronted George and asked him why he thanked two people who had nothing to do with his career and George told him he couldn't think of anything to say so he thanked those two on the spur of the moment.

This picture was taken at some point in the late 1960's. It was used on the 1969 album, Where Grass Won't Grow but I don't know if it was taken in 1969 or 1968. Speaking of the 1969 album...it reaches 40 this year. I do not have the vinyl copy but I do have a low-budget cassette copy that was issued on Hollywood Records/Highland Music in 1988. It features the Top-30 title track, "Where Grass Won't Grow", about a farmer who doesn't have very much success because the ground's so poor. It's a tragic ballad. This album also features the Top-10's "If Not For You" and "She's Mine". Some of my personal favorites are on this album. In addition to the hits there's the toe-tapping "For Better or For Worse But Not For Long" and the barn-stormer, "Shoulder To Shoulder". Can you guess what's shoulder to shoulder in the song? It's a cute sing-a-long.

Another novelty is "No Blues Is Good News". There is one song on here that's sorrowful and chilling and it's "Old Blue Tomorrow". A local DJ would play this song nearly everyday...long before I found the cassette copy of Where Grass Won't Grow. It's a song about aging. "Barbara Joy" is another up-tempo song found on this album, which runs the gamut of emotions.

George Jones...All The Best

When you click the images you will be able to see a particular album released by Sony in 1993 called All The Best. The thing that is interesting is that on the side of the cassette it shows "He Stopped Loving Her Today" as if that's the name of the album. The correct title of the album is what you see written in red letters on the album's cover. This album/cassette featured 10 of George Jones best recordings.

1. He Stopped Loving Her Today; 1980
2. Wine Colored Roses; 1986
3. The Grand Tour; 1974
4. A Picture Of Me Without You; 1972
5. Still Doin' Time; 1981
6. Someday My Day Will Come; 1979
7. If I Could Put Them All Together; 1977
8. I Just Don't Give a Damn; 1975
9. You Always Look Your Best Here in My Arms; 1976
10. Old King Kong; 1977

At the time of this collection's release it was the only modern release to include tracks seven and eight...the rest of the material can be found in an abundant supply of other George Jones best-of and Greatest Hits releases. In fact, this is the only release to feature both of George's singles from his 1977 I Wanta Sing album.

Sony released a follow-up, All The Best, Volume Two which contained several other famous George Jones hits in addition to showcasing the singles that were released from his 1987 Too Wild Too Long album. Unfortunately, I do not have Volume Two but I do remember it featured a mid 1980's picture of George on the cover and featured several of those 1987 recordings mixed in with some late 1970's and early 1980's material.

More George Jones guests...

As I touched upon in the previous blog entry, 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of My Very Special Guests and from that point forward George increased the number of duet recordings he participated in. In years past he would sing duets with artists who were part of the record label he happened to be on. Aside from his duets with Tammy Wynette, he was noted for his duets with Melba Montgomery throughout the early to late 1960's while at the same time pretty much having a duet partnership with pop singer Gene Pitney.

George and Melba Montgomery's duet career is highlighted by their only Top-5 hit, "We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds", in 1963. They remained a duet throughout the 1960's continuing to release singles that received various degree's of commercial success. Melba is second to Tammy Wynette when it comes to female duet success with George. George and Melba released several albums together and six singles released from the two of them were all commercially successful, several peaking in the Top-20...but none of their duets together would match or top the Top-5 finish of their 1963 single. Melba had a husky voice for such a young woman...she was born in 1938 and when she and George recorded together in 1963 she was just 25...Melba makes an appearance on the biography video of George, Same Ole Me which was issued in 1989.

George's other frequent duet partner during the 1960's was pop singer Gene Pitney. The two of them became so popular together that they went under the title "George and Gene" on many of their releases. They issued several duet recordings in the mid to late 1960's with their biggest commercial success coming with "I've Got Five Dollars and It's Saturday Night", a Top-20 hit for them, but a smash hit during the previous decade for Faron Young. What could five dollars get someone in 1965 when George and Gene were on the charts with that single? I bet it could have gotten you quite a lot at a fast-food place and fuel cost was probably $.25 a gallon. Modern audiences tend to laugh at this song now because it's dated...sung back in a time when things weren't so costly as they are now...but it's still a good sing-a-long song even if the lyrics do not mirror contemporary lifestyles.

George and Gene issued two duet albums together in the mid 1960's. For the First Time Two Stars Together and It's Country Time Again. In the years and decades following those releases, independent record labels both here in the United States and world-wide have issued and re-issued those recordings in a variety of low-budget projects. The two never appeared together in concert and Pitney passed away on April 5, 2006 while in the middle of a tour overseas where most of his greatest fame was accomplished.

One of the last re-issues of their material surfaced in 2005 in a CD collection called The Complete '60s Duets and it was compliled by Varese Sarabande in 2004, distributed by King Records a year later. The collection featured all 17 recordings the two made during the 1965 sessions which according to the liner notes were recorded during two separate periods, one in January 1965 and another in June 1965.

As I previously mentioned, there were occasional duets from the 1950's...but the release of 1979's My Very Special Guests seemed to open the floodgates for all sorts of artists clamoring for a duet with George.

George Jones most famous pairing is with Tammy Wynette. Their recording career on vinyl began in 1971 on a song called "Take Me" which George had recorded as a solo song several years earlier. Their version hit the Top-10, as did the original, giving George the rare feat of scoring a Top-10 hit with the same song. The duet was included on their first album together, We Go Together which was issued late in 1971 after George got out of his contract with Musicor Records in order to record with Tammy on her label, Epic, under the guidance of Billy Sherrill.

The George and Tammy marriage lasted a period of years but their music together lasted nearly a full decade, 1971-1981. Their marriage officially lasted for six years, 1969-1975, with the two separating prior to the divorce being finalized on March 13th. Epic Records and Billy Sherrill continued to have the two perform together on records and on TV programs...often there was speculation flying the two would re-marry but it never happened...she eventually married songwriter George Richey while George Jones became a "confirmed bachelor", insisting in an interview with Country Music Magazine in 1977 that he was through with being the marrying kind since it always ends up in divorce. Ironically, after George and Tammy's divorce, they continued having #1 hits and high selling albums and singles...but just as ironic is 1977 marked the last time the two were on tour together for quite awhile.



Tammy's duet with George on the 1979 duet project had been recorded in 1977...and so, in 1980, five years after the divorce, the two of them recorded a brand new album together, appropriately titled Together Again. The album featured a Top-5 hit and a Top-20 hit single and after it's release, and subsequent promotion of the album on TV programs, according to several associates, George insisted that he'd never work or sing with Tammy again. In case you are interested, the three hit singles from the 1980 reunion album were "Two Story House", a Top-5 smash hit. The other hit single was the Top-20 "A Pair of Old Sneakers", which hit in early 1981. George and Tammy prior to this 1980 album had enjoyed seven additional duet albums...all but one charted. The album that failed to chart was their gospel album, We Love To Sing About Jesus in 1972. This 1980 album was their eighth duet album together. As far as singles...earlier I mentioned Melba Montgomery being the second most popular female duet partner with George...with Tammy being #1.

Well, George and Tammy enjoyed a string of 12 hit duet recordings from 1971 to 1977. Among their most celebrated duets are their three #1 hits: "We're Gonna Hold On", 1973; "Golden Ring", 1976; and "Near You", 1977. In addition to those hits, they are also known for "The Ceremony", from 1972...a Top-10 single in which the two recite wedding vows with a preacher heard on the recording to give it authenticity. "We Loved It Away" and "Southern California" are a few more Top-10 hits they had. The two of them were among the golden age of country duets which included their competitors: Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn; Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton; and later in the 1970's Jim Ed Brown and Helen Cornelius...although George and Tammy's singles out-put had dropped considerably by the time Jim Ed and Helen started releasing material together.

Running current with George and Tammy's 1980 "reunion" on records was George's pairing with Johnny PayCheck...the two of them enjoyed a brief successful team-up releasing their versions of 1950's pop and rock songs. Johnny was among the guests in 1979 on My Very Special Guests and by 1980 someone at Epic had the idea of George and Johnny doing an entire album of songs together. Their album, Double Trouble didn't reach the Top-40 on the albums chart but several of their singles became Top-40 hits.

After Together Again ran it's course, and the promotion and publicity died down from the 1979 all-duets project, George settled in on a seven year run of Top-10 successes, beginning in 1980. He continued to issue duets...and as I mentioned earlier, a lot of artists were clamoring for a chance to sing with George. A few of these happened during the 1979-1982 era. Johnny Cash, for instance, was one of George's biggest supporters and friends and he asked George to appear on a few of his duet projects. One of their recordings, 1979's "I Got Stripes", appears on the 2005 re-issue of My Very Special Guests. They recorded another duet as well, "I'll Say It's True", that made the country charts. George, during this time period, also recorded a duet with David Allan Coe, "This Bottle In My Hand", in early 1980...and still there's more...George recorded a duet with Hank Williams, Jr entitled "I Don't Care If Tomorrow Never Comes" plus George was one of the duet partners for Ernest Tubb on the 1979 project, The Legend and the Legacy, which featured Ernest Tubb singing duets with a number of artists. George and Ernest performed "Half a Mind" and "Filipino Baby".

One of country music's other legends, Merle Haggard, teamed up with George in 1982 for A Taste of Yesterday's Wine and then in 1984 nine female country singers teamed up with George on the Ladies Choice project. George's 1985 and 1986 albums each featured a few duets: "If You Could Touch Her At All", a duet with Lynn Anderson, and "That's Good, That's Bad", a duet with Lacy J Dalton, appeared on George's 1985 album, Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes while another duet, with Patti Page, surfaced on 1986's Wine Colored Roses album. During 1985 George found the time to guest on a couple of other duets, "Half a Man" was a duet with Willie Nelson and it was featured on Willie's Half Nelson project. The other appearance was on the David Allan Coe single, "Don't Cry Darlin".

In 1987 Epic released a compilation duet album featuring duet and solo recordings of George, Merle Haggard, and Willie Nelson. The album was called Walking The Line.

The duets just kept on coming...in 1988 he was on the charts with Shelby Lynne on a song called "If I Could Bottle This Up", which featured a second duet on the flip-side of the single, "I Always Get It Right With You". George recorded several more duets in 1988 that never made it onto any album until in 1991...when Epic issued Friends In High Places. The duets were a wide variety of country styles pairing George with the likes of Charlie Daniels, Jim Lauderdale, Dolly Parton, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, Vern Gosdin, among others. The duets that George recorded in 1988 with Jim Lauderdale, "Tavern Choir", and Dolly Parton, "Rockin' Years", were not part of the 1991 Friends in High Places release. Those two 1988 recordings would surface 20 years later on the duet collection, Burn Your Playhouse Down.

In 1990, George notched his 78th Top-10 single in the form of a duet...this time with Randy Travis on "A Few Ole Country Boys", which was featured on Randy's duet's album, Heroes and Friends.

George left Epic in 1991 and went over to MCA...while there he continued recording sporadic duets. He and Mark Chesnutt recorded an up-tempo duet, "Talkin' To Hank", in 1992. Also in 1992 several country singers guest starred on George's single, "I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair". In 1993 George and Sammy Kershaw recorded "Never Bit a Bullet Like This"...and in 1994 another all-star duet project was released. The Bradley Barn Sessions featured George singing his previous hit songs with artist's who were inspired by him. The collection featured a duet with Tammy Wynette, a re-recording of their 1976 #1 "Golden Ring". This marked the first time the two had recorded together in 14 years. George had recently underwent heart bypass surgery...delaying the release of the album until later in 1994. The guests on the 1994 project included Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt, Trisha Yearwood, Marty Stuart, as well as Mark Knopfler and Keith Richards, among many others. All of the artists who recorded duets with George in 1994 recorded two...one of the duets were put on the album while the second duet was kept in the vaults...seven of the unreleased duets from 1994 appeared on 2008's Burn Your Playhouse Down collection.

The reunion of George and Tammy started in 1994 and the two went on a full-blown reunion tour and they recorded a brand new album together, One which was released in 1995 and it contained 10 songs. This marked the first original George and Tammy album in 15 years and their first concert appearance as a duo in 18 years. Their album was a Top-20 success.

George continued to appear in duet recordings off and on throughout the 1990's and into the next millennium, most notable being his background harmony work on Patty Loveless' Top-20 single, "You Don't Seem To Miss Me", in 1998 as well as the award winning single "Too Country" where Brad Paisley recruited George, Buck Owens, and the song's writer, Bill Anderson, for a group recording. In 2006 George teamed up with Merle Haggard again for Kickin' Out the Footlights...Again and the album became a Top-30 hit...but neither George or Merle toured or promoted the album that much in spite of the demand. The two are on different record labels first and foremost...but there wasn't much publicity, which was a shame.

This concludes the look of George's "guests" through the years.

George Jones' Guests...30 years later...

30 years ago in 1979 Epic Records issued a duet album on George Jones called My Very Special Guests. The duet album had been in the planning stages for several years and it was released during some of the more darker days in George's career. I do not have the original vinyl album but I've read some fans and critical comments remarking that the songs sounded "badly edited together" and other such comments to give the impression that the editing job wasn't up to par.

I never got my hands on the duet project until it was re-issued on CD in 1991 and even then I didn't get my hands on it until sometime in the mid 1990's...I lucked out and found a CD copy at a record store in a shopping mall. So, after I bought the much-anticipated project, and, since I have a personal goal of acquiring George Jones material, specifically from the 1970's onward, I listened to the duets with total bliss and excitement.

Listening to the duets I couldn't understand why fans or critics said the album "sounded pieced together, badly" for when I was listening to it, I couldn't even tell most of the duets were over-dubbed over top of George's recordings. According to Epic's associates at that time as well as George's famed record producer, Billy Sherrill, George was often too weak or nowhere to be found during the recording sessions. I take it that Sherrill and company simply decided to record the guest vocalist's lines ahead of time and then whenever they could get George into the studio, then they'd have him sing his lines...then the editing crew and mixing department would put everything together.

The peculiar way of putting the album together worked because it's a time capsule album where you have George and several country and pop acts singing duets...the pop acts at that time were heavily connected to various divisions of country-rock and southern-rock audiences. I am quite sure at the time of the album's release there was grumbling and belly-aching going on and plenty of names being thrown Billy Sherrill's way for having George do a duet album and gasp! have it include pop or southern-rock acts. I have no proof of that but given the reputation Sherrill has among music critics I wouldn't be surprised if such bickering like that went on.

The "oldest" song on the duet CD was his song with Tammy Wynette, "It Sure Was Good", recorded in early 1977 perhaps for a duet album that never materialized but found it's way on this project. Next is "Bartender's Blues" which was actually a major Top-10 hit for George as well as the name of his previous album in 1978...the song having been recorded late in 1977 with James Taylor singing harmony. In July 1978 he recorded his duets with Elvis Costello and Pop and Mavis Staples. The rest of the duets were recorded at various points throughout 1978 with "Proud Mary", his duet with Johnny PayCheck, recorded in November of that year. Ironically there was no material recorded in 1979 that was put onto the album.

The project was re-issued once more in 2005, marking the project's 26th anniversary. I think the label, Sony/BMG Music, may have been mistaken about what year the album was originally released because the celebration of the project's release came a year after it's silver anniversary. I assume they thought 2005 was the 25th anniversary of the album...and it's easy to see why: HBO aired a special in 1980 about this album and the show was titled George Jones: With a Little Help From My Friends and it featured George performing a lot of duets from the album plus exclusive duets with artists that weren't on the album. However, I'm probably wrong about the label not knowing when the duet project was originally issued because BMG had also issued a re-release of his 1980 album in 2005, marking the project's silver anniversary...so it could be that Sony/BMG Music were simply issuing titles under the "Legacy Edition" banner and decided to issue My Very Special Guests as well.

I will add that the 2005 re-issue contained 27 additional duets...it featured the original ten from the 1979 album plus it featured a collection of duets that George recorded throughout the 1980's and 1990's. It was a 2 CD collection and it came with an informative booklet.

The track list on the original album:

1. Night Life- with Waylon Jennings
2. Bartender's Blues- with James Taylor {harmony}
3. Here We Are- with Emmylou Harris
4. I've Turned You To Stone- with Linda Ronstadt
5. It Sure Was Good- with Tammy Wynette
6. I Gotta Get Drunk- with Willie Nelson
7. Proud Mary- with Johnny PayCheck
8. Stranger in the House- with Elvis Costello
9. I Still Hold Her Body- with Dennis and Ray of "Dr. Hook"
10. Will The Circle Be Unbroken- with Pop and Mavis Staples

George Jones...and Music City News...

This is a picture of Nancy and George taken from the 1987 TOO WILD TOO LONG album. The picture appears in the inside cover along side the producer and musician credits. The album has not been issued as an MP3 yet. I hope one day that it will be because I only have it on cassette.

1987 was the year that George was named a Living Legend by the readers of the Music City News magazine. There once was a publication in Nashville that was fan-oriented pretty much and was an easy to digest reading experience...not like this and all of my blog's which are filled to the brim with so many words. Music City News was once owned by country singer, Faron Young. The older issues look like newspaper's actually...not a standard magazine. The organization created an awards program where the readers of the magazine voted on the nominee's and then once that round was finished, the readers voted for their favorite in each category in a forthcoming issue. Years later country fans from all over could still vote on the winners by way of mailing in the ballot's if they happened to be a subscriber to the magazine, or by calling a number advertised on television, and voting for their choice over the phone using an automated system would take place. I specifically remember voting for Comedian of the Year several years in a row and would push the number for 'Ray Stevens' in addition to the other artist's I would vote for over the phone.

The awards began in the late 1960's, I believe 1966...but probably 1967. The 1987 Music City News program in which George Jones was named a Living Legend was the 21st annual telecast...so 1966...somewhere in that time period the awards were created. In the 1980's, 1983 to be exact, The Nashville Network went on the air...and several years later the network started up their Viewer's Choice award show...along the lines of the mainstream People's Choice. The TNN Viewer's Choice was fan-voted as you can tell from the award's name and it was a competitor of Music City News. As far as I know, this TNN awards program is what caused Music City News to open up the voting on their show to the public in general, instead of only the readers of the magazine being allowed to cast ballot's. In the early 1990's, maybe 1990, the Viewer's Choice merged with the Music City News to become the TNN/Music City News awards...and during voting period TNN would air commercials with voting numbers for those who weren't magazine subscriber's. If you had the magazine you'd have the paper ballot and you'd mail it in to the Music City News address.

In 1982 Music City News came out with their Songwriter's Awards show...this program was not as familiar to TV viewers as the mainstream Awards were because a lot of songwriter's performed their own songs on the show...if a singer happened to be a songwriter, that was a bonus, but mostly the song's being performed were not by the artist's but by the writer/writer's. Sometimes artist's would perform songs they didn't write if the song was up for an award and then if the song won, the writer's would come up and accept the award. For example, Mickey Gilley performed the Alan Jackson hit song "Wanted" on the Songwriter's Awards in 1991...after he was through performing, the songwriter was asked to come up on stage and accept the award. Alan Jackson appeared via video-tape offering his comments about the song.

The Living Legend as you might guess was the Music City News version of the Hall of Fame...the unique twist about this award was whoever won it, had to be a presenter of the award the following year. George Jones received this award in 1987...and so he presented Conway Twitty with the honor in 1988...and Conway presented Loretta Lynn with the honor in 1989...etc etc etc.

the 1983 George Jones road book

The book has some wear to it but there's not a torn page or anything. My grandfather bought this at a 1984 George Jones concert that he, myself, and my grandmother went to. He kept it for years but one day he let me have the book since I would appreciate it more.

There are a lot of pictures, along with George's commentary, throughout the road book/tour book. The name of the book promotes I AM WHAT I AM, George's 1980 album, reaching Platinum status in 1983.

I scanned some images from the book as I mentioned that I would be doing in a previous entry. This first image is a collage of pictures...you will have to click the images in this blog to see a bigger picture...I didn't want a lot of huge pictures dominating the blog.





In the picture below, it's the centerfold I was referring to in a previous entry.





I also scanned a page promoting the park...which includes a picture of the bandstand and a picture of George pushing on a tree...you'll have to click the image...





I wonder what's standing where Jones Country once stood assuming it's no longer standing? Anyone around that part of Texas maybe want to travel over there and take a look around and see if the bandstand is still standing or if the woods and wildlife have taken over the area?

Anyway, this puts the wraps on the Jones Country talk...for now.

Too Wild George Jones...1988

Going back to 1987...a year after WINE COLORED ROSES...Epic released this album on George in late 1987 and the bulk of it's singles were released in 1988 with the exception of "The Bird" which hit the country chart in December of 1987 and peaked early in 1988. That particular recording is a funny/novelty song and it hit the Top-30, peaking in the same position as his previous single, "I Turn To You". The sales of "The Bird" were high and in a separate survey the single hit the Top-10 based on sales.

After the moderate airplay success of "The Bird", Epic issued "I'm a Survivor" which sounds as if it were written especially for George...it peaked in the Top-60...his singles were starting to chart lower in this period as you can tell. A third single from TOO WILD TOO LONG was the sad "The Old Man No One Loves" which was made into a music video. The single was charted for a grand total of 6 weeks and peaked in the Top-65.

On the concert trail George was as busy as ever and packing in audiences all over the country and up in Canada. The album's title track, "Too Wild Too Long", tells the story of a man who meets up with a woman he once knew and he begins to tell her how much he hasn't changed and that he still has an urge to roam...telling her "but i've still got this problem with just four little walls/and one good look should tell you that I haven't changed at all...". As a side-note, I have a red ball cap with the phrase TOO WILD TOO LONG written across it that was bought by my grandparent's when they saw George in concert in 1989.

There is a You Tube clip of George performing one of the songs from this album on the TV show HEE-HAW. "The Real McCoy" was not issued as a single, although it was the B-side of one. This particular song was performed by George on several of his TV appearances as if it were a single. It's a song about a man who notices a lot of women during the course of a day and he finds enjoyment that he's got the real deal at his house and she doesn't need any fake eye-lashes or Hong Kong hair as George puts it.

There are a few cover songs on here...first there's "New Patches" which was a hit for Mel Tillis a few years before George recorded it. Then we have "I'm a Long Gone Daddy", the Hank Williams song. George's rendition is faithful to the original from Hank although it has a more bluesy arrangement and George says "time to move on awhile" during one of the instrumental breaks which wasn't in the Hank version. There's also some subtle difference in word usage. In Hank's version the line goes "you start your jaws a-waggin and you never stop/you never shut your mouth until I blow my top/so I'm leavin' now..." and in George's version the phrase remains the same except for "you never hush yo' mouth until I blow my top...". So, little changes here and there are to be expected.

The sleeper song of the album...or the romantic song...the straight-forward love ballad...belongs to "Moments of Brilliance". The album closes with the topical song "The USA Today"...it isn't about the newspaper...instead, it's about current events and politics and other topical subjects of that time period. It features a patriotic decoration "But you don't see those refugee's heading the other way/So welcome to the USA today...". George telling us that the country has it's problems but it's still the greatest place to live.

After the promotion died down with this album by late 1988, he was appearing with Shelby Lynne promoting their duet "If I Could Bottle This Up", which had hit the Top-45...coming close to making the Top-40. They recorded a second duet entitled "I Always Get It Right With You". That particular song found it's way onto a George Jones unreleased duets CD years later, BURN YOUR PLAYHOUSE DOWN. "If I Could Bottle This Up" is featured on the 1991 duets compilation FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES that Epic issued on George.

Fancy me finding you here...

George Jones and Merle Haggard...ol' George and Merle...good ol' Haggard and Jones...the Mighty Merle and Possum Jones...whichever way you refer to the two legends in country music, the pairing of the two came about in 1982 on an album entitled A TASTE OF YESTERDAY's WINE. The album's title track was written by Willie Nelson, who had recorded the song himself years earlier. Epic released the title track as a single in 1982 and it became a #1 hit. For those not familiar with the song it's about two friends who run into each other at a bar and they both reacquaint themselves with one another and they proceed to profess their love of a wine...which doubles as a metaphor describing how much the two are aging with time. Leona Williams is on hand providing harmony vocals on many of the songs in addition to the regular group of background vocalists. Leona in fact wrote the second song on the album, "After I Sing All My Songs", which is a broad tale about George and Merle on and off stage coping with their hectic lives. The personal and semi-autobiographical "I Think I've Found a Way To Live Without You" comes from Haggard. In it, Haggard sings about a weakness of his and the only way to conquer it in his opinion. Jones, on the other hand, has the awesome line "...I know everybody wonders why drinkin' hasn't killed me...".

The bulk of this album is made up of songs from Merle and his associates. Freddy Powers, a long time Haggard co-writer/associate, supplied not only guitar work on the album but also co-wrote a song on here paying tribute to Merle. Powers and another writer named Gary Church wrote the Haggard tribute, "Silver Eagle", which George tackles the lead vocals while Merle comes on near the end with a spoken line. Dave Kirby, credited with guitar playing on the album, has two songs on the album. "The Brothers" is a tale about, brothers, obviously...and how one sets his eyes on stardom in Nashville while the other remains grounded.

Track five, "Mobile Bay, Magnolia Blossoms", is the second Dave Kirby song...this one co-written by Curly Putnam. In the song, Merle sings about a group of alcoholics on a cold Chicago morning swapping stories about where they all came from...with Merle playing the part of the man from Mobile Bay. George sings the chorus in this song.





The second side of the album kicks off in high gear...George takes on the lead vocals for the romping "C.C. Waterback", which Haggard wrote. It is the story of a wild party and how much their heads hurt the next morning. This was the album's second single and it peaked in the Top-10. Aside from "Silver Eagle", the rest of the songs on side two are up-tempo. "Must've Been Drunk" features Haggard and Jones in a bar...being approached by a religious woman from the Salvation Army of all places. The woman takes out her bible and in her own way tells Haggard and Jones of how bad they're sinning and they promise to stop drinking...but can't remember making such a promise the next morning...because the two must've been drunk, get it? The songwriters of that particular song were Vern Gosdin and Max D Barnes. "I Haven't Found Her Yet" is a run of the mill song...nothing too deep or anything...it features a heavy dose of strings. It was written by Haggard and Johnny PayCheck. The album's closer was written by George and Glen Martin...a little ol' song called "No Show Jones" in which George and Merle name-drop other country singer's nick-names...always coming back to George's infamous nick-name during this time period, No Show Jones. It is a song that would become a concert opener for years and years for George.

It is always amazing for some country fans to learn that this was the only album George and Merle ever recorded together for many years...the album went out of print at some point in the late 1980's as did the cassette counterpart. It was re-issued in CD format in 2002, twenty years after it's original release in 1982. It is available in MP3 format as a digital download album for those curious.





Fast forward nearly twenty five years...2006...George and Merle team up again and offer KICKIN' OUT THE FOOTLIGHTS...AGAIN. In this collection, they perform songs made popular by each other...given it's sub-title of JONES SINGS HAGGARD...HAGGARD SINGS JONES. In addition to each singer performing solo songs, they both recorded a few duets together on here, including "Sick, Sober, and Sorry", "Footlights", "Don't Get Around Much Anymore", "Don't Be Ashamed of Your Age", and others.

speaking of George Jones...

Hello again...for those who read this and are big George Jones fans, I know you won't mind that big image of the magazine after you click the image. I scanned the magazine's cover as to why it's bigger than usual. I bought it off eBay several months ago and it's priceless to me. The magazine as you can see was published in January 1983 which means that the article written on George was put together at some point in late 1982...when George was still very much unpredictable and enjoying a highly successful duet project with Merle Haggard, the album A TASTE OF YESTERDAY's WINE, which I will spotlight in a future blog. This was the era in which his no-show reputation had escalated into tours being canceled and according to George, years later, he discovered that his manager's would often book him at two different venue's on the same night...leaving one venue filled with angry consumers while another venue "may" be treated to George himself, just in case he actually shown up...

We, as well as George himself, can make light of these wild and crazy antics now since basically all is forgiven because George was battling an illness known as alcoholism, which by the late '70s was mixed with another illness called drug addiction. This wasn't "George Jones" during most of this time period...and as George put it years later, "I was a completely different person inside the body you see today". This meant that George, while under the influence of both alcohol and drugs, was not himself...but after straightening himself up he was still the same person physically and visually but mentally he was now sane and rational.

During this time George was Nancy's on-again/off-again companion...George admitted years later that in the early days of his relationship with Nancy that he often tried to get rid of her...such as leaving her at shopping stores or sending her out for things and being gone when she came back. When telling these stories in 1996 during an interview promoting his autobiography, he, along with the studio audience, as well as Ralph Emery, howled with laughter.

He explained that this was the behavior of a madman who loved wine and cocaine more than anything...and in spite of George's efforts to rid himself of Nancy, she persisted and the two were married in early 1983...a few months after this magazine hit the stores. I believe the turning point was in late 1982 when George's former associates, as well as the Mob in Alabama, threatened Nancy and her family and this chaos caused George and Nancy and her children to head off to Texas and to the wooded area George's sister owned for seclusion...I believe that is how it all came about but I'm going by memory as I do not have I LIVED TO TELL IT ALL in front of me to confirm it.

Those other pictures in this blog are of me and some of my other George Jones items. I'm inside a flea market, which is where I found a vinyl LP of SHINE ON. In the other picture I'm simply showing off the cassette copy of YOU'VE STILL GOT A PLACE IN MY HEART and the other picture was taken recently where i'm showing RAGGED BUT RIGHT.

I know this link won't be able to be clicked but you can highlight it and Google the site for yourself...

http://www.bigthicketdirectory.com/articles/articles1.html

Once there you can read some behind the scenes stories of George in the early stages of Jones Country and some exchanges he had with the local residents.

...heartbreak by the dozen...

Yes, as many fans of classic country music will pick out right away, the name of this blog is derived from the Ray Price hit "Heartaches By the Number" but for this blog I call it Heartbreak by the Dozen because in this particular installment we're going to look at a 1986 George Jones album called WINE COLORED ROSES...before I get into the meat and potatoes of the album, a little history lesson is needed...and besides, I'm a sucker for nostalgia and talking about the by-gone days.

At the time of this album's release country radio had been going through some major shifts in identity. The decade started off with the industry reaping millions from the Urban Cowboy fad and other pop-influenced acts popping up left and right. By mid decade the Urban Cowboy fad was winding down in large parts of cities who were moving on to the next movement. In Nashville the fad continued to thrive due to Mickey Gilley being one of the biggest country music stars during the first half of the 1980's and his Gilley's night-club continued to weave the imagery brought to life in the Urban Cowboy movie. However, there was a segment of country singers who did not get into all of the cowboy attire or ride mechanical bulls. George Jones was one of the few who did not.

By the time WINE COLORED ROSES was issued, the landscape in country music was a sea of eclecticism with all sorts of country music styles being played and recorded. There was also a trend of younger country singers coming along at this same time, unofficially lead by Randy Travis, but it also included diverse acts as Alabama, Reba McEntire, and George Strait. These acts, in addition to several more later in the decade, would help shape country radio throughout the 1980's and most of the 1990's. All of this emergence of talent proved to be a blessing and a curse for country music...for Nashville wanted country music to compete, legitimately, with pop and rock music and this meant more airplay of those particular singers whom radio programmer's felt attracted a majority middle age to younger listening audience. Yes, this is the era in which country radio started it's gradual decline of airplay of artists based not on their talent or their ability to sell concert tickets and singles, but rather, the airplay declines were based on demographics and audience make-up.

WINE COLORED ROSES featured a few of George's last Top-10 hits. The title track is quintessential George Jones...it tells of a man who gets a letter from a former girlfriend who asks if he's quit drinking...and the man tells her his answer via the mail. The song, being a ballad, inched up the charts and made the Top-10 for a couple of weeks...in a separate chart that tracked sales of singles, "Wine Colored Roses" peaked three places higher...indicating it was being bought in spite of radio not playing it much. A follow-up single didn't arrive from this album until late spring 1987, the bouncy "The Right Left Hand". This single also sailed into the Top-10...written specifically about George and his wife, Nancy. Epic then released the poetic "I Turn To You" later in 1987 as a third single...this one was the first solo recording of George's that decade to not enter the Top-10. He had issued several duet recordings in 1985 and in 1980/1981 that peaked in the Top-20 but all of his solo recordings managed to hit the Top-10 with frequency starting back in 1980 with "He Stopped Loving Her Today". So, "I Turn To You" broke a seven year string of consecutive Top-10 solo hits for George, 1980-1987. Interested in where "I Turn To You" peaked at? It peaked in the Top-30 but no higher than #25...and I'll bet nobody even recalls when that song was a single...I didn't know it was a single until 10 or more years ago when I first started looking up chart placings of my favorite singers and seen it listed as a commercial single by him.

The rest of the album fits between slow ballads and up-tempo songs...one of the more clever is "Don't Leave Without Taking Your Silver". A song that should have been a single but wasn't is "The Very Best of Me". When you hear this song it jumps out of the speakers and sounds like the kind of song George could have had fun with in concert. "Ol' Frank" tackles the familiar subject of a woman marrying for money. "Hopelessly Yours" is a straight forward romantic song that I like...it was recorded several years later by Lee Greenwood and Suzy Boggus as a duet. They had the hit recording as well as a hit music video. "If Only Your Eyes Could Lie" typically gets the thumbs up from just about everyone who hears it...it has the elements that most country music listeners want to hear. "These Old Eyes Have Seen It All" carries a nostalgic feel where George tells about a man he encounters in a bar and is immediately taken through time by way of the older man's stories.

There is a duet in this collection and it's a song with pop singer Patti Page who has always had a connection to some sections of country music with her gospel recordings and her "Tennessee Waltz" anthem. On this album, George and Patti team up to sing "You Never Looked That Good When You Were Mine", a delicious song about a couple who've since parted ways but after having time away from one another they suddenly notice each other's attractiveness. This album was certified GOLD in 1994 by the RIAA.

1. Wine Colored Roses
2. I Turn To You
3. The Right Left Hand
4. Don't Leave Without Taking Your Silver
5. The Very Best of Me
6. Hopelessly Yours
7. You Never Looked That Good When You Were Mine- with Patti Page
8. If Only Your Eyes Could Lie
9. Ol' Frank
10. These Old Eyes Have Seen It All

Some more George Jones...

The first picture is a book written about George. The picture that's used was lifted from George's 1984 album, YOU'VE STILL GOT A PLACE IN MY HEART. You then see me showing off one of my George Jones albums...this one is 1977's I WANTA SING. Down through the years that album cover has been voted the worst George Jones album cover of all-time...for it shows a tour bus with a painting of George's face on the front.

While the album cover may not be everyone's favorite...the ten songs contained on that album are great...

1. I Wanta Sing
2. Please Don't Sell Me Anymore Whiskey Tonight
3. They've Got Millions in Milwaukee
4. If I Could Put Them All Together
5. I Love You So Much It Hurts
6. Rest In Peace
7. Old King Kong
8. Bull Mountain Lad
9. You've Got The Best of Me Again
10. It's a 10-33 Let's Get Jesus on the Line

The title song is about George's idols through the years: Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, and Bill Monroe. There are a few up-tempo sing-a-long songs on this collection: "Old King Kong" being most notable as it was one of the single's issued from this album. "They've Got Millions in Milwaukee" is a cute song about how the state of Wisconsin has made a fortune off of alcoholics and drinkers. "Bull Mountain Lad" is a mountain song with a sing-a-long, old-timey arrangement. Something akin to polka music can be heard backing up George on "Please Don't Sell Me Anymore Whiskey Tonight". As far as ballads...we have "Rest in Peace", "I Love You So Much it Hurts", "You've Got the Best of Me Again", and the single "If I Could Put Them All Together". One of the ironic things about the single releases is that "Old King Kong" charted much lower than "If I Could Put Them All Together". By contrast, "Old King Kong" charted in the lower Top-40, peaking a few notches short of #30 while "If I Could Put Them All Together" peaked at a stronger Top-25 finish...neither single entered the Top-10 as you can see. The thing that's ironic to me is "Old King Kong", the lower charting of the two, is actually better remembered than the bigger hit from the album. The album closes with a quirky but fun song about religion and CB radio's...you'll have to hear it to understand.

In the third picture we see George on stage at Jones Country with Leona Williams in the background along side his former harmony singer, Ron Gaddis. When you click the image you'll see the big painting of George up on the wall behind them.

Re-visiting Jones Country

I like being in Jones Country so much I decided to showcase some pictures of George from the country music park. The first picture is George and Nancy with the Jones Country bandstand in the background. This is the stage in which George and other artists put on concerts. You can click on many of these pictures in my blog's and see a bigger image.

One of the features of the stage were the facial portraits of various country artists painted on the wall with George's face planted right in the center. The park contained a luxurious log cabin that George and Nancy lived in...pictures of the cabin are in a 1984 issue of Music City News which features George on the cover with the headline "Happy At Home". I know I have some of the images uploaded from my personal collection and once I track them down I'll post them.

In the second picture we see George standing up against a wooden railing with Nancy sitting in the background along with George's sister, Helen, and her husband, Dub Scoggins. This I assume was taken on the front or back porch of George's cabin...but it could very well have been at his sister's house because it was she and her husband that convinced George to leave Nashville and come out to Texas in the first place at some point in late 1982/early 1983...not long after the move to Texas he married Nancy.

Let's Visit Jones Country

Hello once again...let's all take a visit to Jones Country. Oh, I don't mean literally...as it's no longer in business. Jones Country was the name of the seasonal outdoor music park that was owned and operated by George during the 1980's. It's grand opening was Labor Day 1983 and it was a somewhat thriving business for a period of years. I have no information on who bought it or even if it's still standing and I have no real information on when the park closed but I will say it shut down in 1988 after the spring and fall seasons as George and Nancy returned to Nashville after being Texas inhabitants since late 1982.



There is not much information about the country music park but there are a few trinkets and souvenirs/brochures floating around promoting the facility. As much as I can gather it was built back in the woods of southeast Texas. There is a nice centerfold of George promoting the park in a 1984 tour book that I have which is called FROM GOLD TO PLATINUM: I AM WHAT I AM. In this tour book there are several pictures of George at Jones Country, including a picture of him pushing over a tree in the woods. The park inspired the name of a 1983 album that Epic Records released. The album contained no singles and very few promotional ad's in spite of a stellar line-up of songs.

The album contains these ten songs...mostly all of them are ballads...

1. Radio Lover
2. Dream On
3. Hello Trouble
4. Burning Bridges
5. Wino the Clown
6. You Must Have Walked Across My Mind Again
7. I'd Rather Die Young Than Grow Old Without You
8. The Girl at the End of the Bar
9. One of These Days But Not Tonight
10. Famous Last Words

If you look at the songs and go "oh, I've heard Radio Lover and a few others", well, you'd be correct. In 1989 Epic pulled "Radio Lover" and "Burning Bridges" from this album and placed them on the 1989 ONE WOMAN MAN album. Then, in 1992, George re-recorded "You Must Have Walked Across My Mind Again" for his WALLS CAN FALL album...yet, originally when this JONES COUNTRY album was released, Epic released nothing from it. This is the album that followed SHINE ON and preceded YOU'VE STILL GOT A PLACE IN MY HEART. As of this writing, JONES COUNTRY has yet to be issued on CD or as an MP3.

A rare find for me...you don't know the many years I went through off and on tracking down JONES COUNTRY. I had at one time written a letter to a company that was an expert at tracking down rare and out of print albums only for them to reply that no such album named JONES COUNTRY from George Jones existed. Naturally, I knew it existed...once I became internet bound I eventually stumbled upon a vinyl copy for sell on eBay. I bought it...and then lightning struck again...several weeks later a cassette copy was being offered. I immediately bought it...AND the cassette copy of LADIES CHOICE...two mid '80s albums from George Jones that critics and fans alike don't even remember.

This is actually LADIES CHOICE, the duet album that was released in 1984 following YOU'VE STILL GOT A PLACE IN MY HEART. I wanted to show off the cassette version. I have the vinyl copy as well.

Silver Anniversary

The year...1984...25 years ago. George Jones was riding the crest of his new-marriage along with a re-focused look at his career. This marks the silver anniversary of a couple of George Jones albums and some books, too. The books are biographies that were released in this era, as a lot of writers were re-discovering the music of George Jones after they must have been put on a self-imposed M.I.A from covering his career...wanting to write more about the wild off-stage antics that were taking place.

George and Nancy are coming up on their 26th wedding anniversary. The two of them got married on March 4, 1983. On the personal front he was still coping and dealing with his much-reported alcoholism but on the career front he was riding high on the radio as one of the advertisements in this blog indicates. The couple were living away from Nashville at the time...far, far away...out in southeast Texas to be specific. The two settled in the part of Texas that George grew up in and by late 1983 the couple had opened up a country music park, "Jones Country", out in the wooded area in the vicinity of Colmesneil, Texas. Interestingly, EPIC Records had issued an album called JONES COUNTRY around the time of the country music park's grand opening on Labor Day, 1983.

YOU'VE STILL GOT A PLACE IN MY HEART...this is the name of the album that EPIC issued on George in early 1984. The album consisted of ten songs all delivered in George's distinctive style and it focused quite a bit on more optimistic sentiments, specifically the title track, which features a lazy harmonica solo adding to the song's feel. There were only three songs that you could call sad on the entire album and those were tracks four, nine, and ten. The only downside about the album, from a commercial stand-point, is EPIC never bothered to release anything else from it...which went in step with JONES COUNTRY because with that album, EPIC never issued any single from it at all. So, with only one single released to country radio from YOU'VE STILL GOT A PLACE IN MY HEART, this meant that nine songs went un-heard by the masses.

The track list for this 1984 album is as follows:

1. You've Still Got a Place In My Heart
2. From Strangers, To Lovers, To Friends
3. The Second Time Around
4. Come Sundown
5. Even The Bad Times Are Good
6. I'm Ragged But I'm Right
7. Courtin' In The Rain
8. Loveshine
9. Your Lying Blue Eyes
10. Learning To Do Without Me

The album was ballad heavy with only three songs in the up-tempo vein. George taped an hour long TV appearance to promote this album and it ran on The Nashville Network in the summer of 1984, entitled NEW COUNTRY, a regular series on TNN. While the album was ballad heavy, tracks six, seven, and eight were up-tempo. In fact, track six is a re-recording of one of George's earliest songs from the mid 1950's. Track six also served as the title for one of the biographies to surface that year. Dolly Carlisle wrote the biography, RAGGED BUT RIGHT, and used a publicity picture of George on the book's cover. If you look closely at the book's cover you will notice it's the same picture EPIC used for their 1982 compilation album on George, ANNIVERSARY: TEN YEARS OF HITS, although for the album they used the head-shot and cut off the rest of the body.

The biography featured plenty of stories of George's career and personal life including information that had been passed on from one source to the other. George himself was never contacted about the book's release but I have it in my collection and it isn't a terrible biography...it isn't filled with wall-to-wall gossip, either...but it does contain it's fair share of hearsay, which I was referring to a few moments ago with second-hand information being handed down from one person to the next, but it's still a good read. The back of the book features a testimonial from none other than Merle Haggard saying "After reading RAGGED BUT RIGHT, I can think of only one word to describe the man and his music...INCREDIBLE!". Below this is a few paragraphs from Carlisle and following this is a small write-up about the author and telling us she was named a CMA Journalist of the Year three times and that she had written four articles on George for People Magazine prior to her issuing this book. The pictures are incredible...including a picture of George and infamous manager Shug Baggott on a speed boat plus some pictures of George at Jones Country...in one picture he's performing a duet with Leona Williams.

There are two sets of pictures in this book. The first set appears between pages 48 and 49. In this series of pictures there are younger pictures of George and some of his family. There is also a picture, a bird's eye view shot, of the opening day of his Plantation Park that was up and running according to the book, from 1970 through 1973 when George and Tammy moved back to Nashville. Also in the pictures are a shot of him and Waylon Jennings that was taken, as far as I know, during the recording sessions of MY VERY SPECIAL GUESTS in 1979.

The second set of pictures appears between pages 176 and 177...including a picture of George as a cast-member of HOLLYWOOD SQUARES. He is located on the top far left corner during a 1981 week-long taping. Also on the show were Tammy Wynette, Jim Stafford, Margo Smith, Mel Tillis, George Lindsay, Minnie Pearl, and Roy Clark. The ninth square was series regular George Gobel, wearing a cowboy hat, and it's interesting that Gobel is the only one in the cast wearing the stereotypical cowboy hat and everyone else isn't wearing any...well, actually, the only person, besides Gobel, with a hat was Minnie Pearl...so, looking at the picture of the show's contestants, in a manner of speaking, it was sort of like a city person's idea of what "country music" is: a cowboy hat; those who are fans of country music will know what I'm getting at.

There was a second book released on George this year, too. This book was titled THE SAGA OF A COUNTRY MUSIC SINGER, and it was written by Bob Allen, a music critic for the now out of print Country Music Magazine. This second book is more or less a gossip-meets-facts-meets-entertainment-meets-author's opinion's on George Jones from the start of his life until the mid 1980's. Allen's opinions of Nashville and the music industry can be found among the biography...as well as his opinions of just about everyone who's associated with George in and out of the country music business. In a lot of ways this book is similar to RAGGED BUT RIGHT in that it provides a lot of hearsay and infamous stories about George's past but where RAGGED BUT RIGHT comes across as an easy read, THE SAGA book comes across as an analytical study filled more with opinion from the author than a presentation of facts or hearsay. Allen's thoughts about Billy Sherrill and others in country music during the 1970's, specifically, are written loud and clear while the author continually brings up commercialism as a bad thing? All in all the book can be informative if one is more interested in wanting to know what the author thinks about George and country music instead of a reader wanting to learn about George, the person, and George, the singer.

I assume the author felt it personally interesting to dwell on debts that George racked up or make snide comments toward Billy Sherrill at various points in the book...plus he takes a jab at Ralph Emery and at others the author doesn't care too much about...all of this totally unnecessary in a George Jones biography. So, in my summarization of this book, you will learn a whole lot about what the author likes and hates in country music hidden within the promotional avenue of a "George Jones biography", where one could say the author uses George's name to vent his own thoughts and views.

Like the RAGGED BUT RIGHT book, this book from Bob Allen contains pictures as well. Although Dolly Carlisle's book went out of print and was never re-issued, Bob Allen's book was re-printed in paperback in 1994 and retitled THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A HONKY TONK LEGEND picking up in the mid 1980's where the first book left off and running through 1994...which means ten more years were analyzed in the 1994 re-print version.

Closing the chapter now on the books that were issued in 1984, we move on over to the music once again. In late 1984 EPIC issued a second album on George. This one was a duet album with all female country singers. LADIES CHOICE hit late in 1984 featuring nine duets and one solo recording. Unlike his previous album, EPIC issued three singles from this LADIES CHOICE. The first single arrived in late 1984, the solo "She's My Rock" which was a smash hit...claiming the runner-up spot for three weeks...unable to knock off the #1 single at the time. Afterward, in the first half of 1985, EPIC issued the duet with Brenda Lee, "Hallelujah, I Love You So", which reached the Top-20 as did the other single from the album, his duet with Lacy J Dalton called "Size Seven Round and Made of Gold". The duets were sensational in my opinion but I assume country radio programmer's were weary of duets since there was a duet craze in country music during the early 1980's and so the duet single's suffered as a result. EPIC promoted this album on the TNN show, Nashville Now, where George performed a number of duets on the show with the ladies: Terri Gibbs and Leona Williams just to name a few. The track-list for the duet album goes as follows:

1. She's My Rock
2. Hallelujah, I Love You So- with Brenda Lee
3. All I Want To Do In Life- with Janie Frickie
4. We Sure Make Good Love- with Loretta Lynn
5. Daisy Chain- with Barbara Mandrell
6. All Fall Down- with Emmylou Harris
7. Size Seven Round- with Lacy J Dalton
8. Our Love Was Ahead of It's Time- with Deborah Allen
9. Slow Burning Fire- with Terri Gibbs
10. Best Friends- with Leona Williams

This closes out the look at 1984 in the George Jones time-line.