George Jones: Silver Anniversary

March 2, 2009

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.

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1976

there were several George Jones albums issued in the mid to late 1970's that never really got the attention they deserved and years later various independent record labels both in America and overseas have issued CD's of the mid '70s out-put; there's a popular belief that his material wasn't up to the 1960's standards but this material is not meant to be comparable to his 1960's out-put...the album contained a majority up-tempo feel in spite of the album cover and it's title; It wasn't until mid-way through that we hear sad songs; the album contained two hit singles...first off the Top-20 title track, "The Battle", and the Top-40 love ballad "You Always Look Your Best Here in My Arms".

1977

One of the under-rated albums from the late '70s from George is this one; it's called I WANTA SING and the title track is about George's musical heroes but don't let the bizarre album cover sway your opinion before hearing the songs; on this album we have hard-core country music with just a touch of pop...that touch of pop comes on "I Love You So Much It Hurts Me" where he croons the song; the hits include the Top-40 "Old King Kong" and the Top-30 "If I Could Put Them All Together"; other highlights from this album include "They've Got Millions in Milwaukee", "Bull Mountain Lad", and "Rest In Peace".

1980

George and Johnny PayCheck had been releasing duet singles for two years prior to the release of this 1980 duet album; titled DOUBLE TROUBLE it set out to cash-in on the rowdy/outlaw side of country music that had been taken over by the Urban Cowboy era; the album contained all of the singles the two were to release together: "Maybelline", "You Can Have Her", "When You're Ugly Like Us", and "You Better Move On"; their single releases were once a year 1978, 1979, 1980, and into early 1981; the duo's 1979 recording of "Proud Mary" is on here as well...it originally appeared on the 1979 all-star collection MY VERY SPECIAL GUESTS that Epic issued on George.

1980

This album is routinely voted as George's all-time classic...every song from #1 to #10 is typically picked as a favorite among his fans; the monster success of the album's centerpiece, "He Stopped Loving Her Today", is one reason why this album in particular stands out above all the others...the single not only hit #1 but it won a Grammy and several other awards; The album itself became the fastest selling of his career...hitting Platinum barely 3 years later...a million copies of a vinyl album was unheard of for many country singers...not to mention one that remained grounded in country music without a lot of pop aspirations; The album featured two more singles...the somber "I'm Not Ready Yet" and the honky-tonker "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me"; The album had it's share of up-tempo songs...such as "Good Hearted Woman", "His Lovin' Her Is Gettin' In My Way", and the bouncy "Bone Dry".

1981

Issued after the widespread acclaim and success of I AM WHAT I AM in 1980, this album rode the success of it's predecessor and featured two major Top-5 hits plus it included a song that was originally a single-only release in 1979 called "Someday My Day Will Come"; the two Top-5 hits were "Same Ole Me", and the #1 "Still Doin' Time"; the album contained a duet with his daughter, Georgette, "Daddy Come Home"; this album went Gold several years later and it included "I Won't Need You Anymore" which would become one of Randy Travis' first hit songs; other highlights are "You Can't Get The Hell Out of Texas", "Girl, You Sure Know How To Say Goodbye", and "Couldn't Love Have Picked a Better Place To Die".

1982

George and Merle trade verses throughout the majority of this duet album...only one song features almost all George and it's "Silver Eagle" which is a narrative/ballad about Haggard; Each singer gets a song patterned after them...in Haggard's case it's "Silver Eagle" and in George's it's the novelty "No Show Jones", which closes out the album; One of the more deeper songs is "I Think I've Found a Way To Live Without You" and coming in a close second is "After I Sing All My Songs"; the album contained the #1 title track, "Yesterday's Wine", and the Top-10 "C.C. Waterback"; "The Brothers" is another great song.

1983

This is a wonderful album from George released in early 1983; according to what I've read, the vocals were recorded in 1982 and Billy Sherrill and his associates added everything else later but you couldn't tell by listening to it that it was patched together; It boasted three major Top-5 hits: the title track, "Shine On", plus the smashes "Tennessee Whiskey" and "I Always Get Lucky With You", all three singles peaked at #3, #2, and #1 respectively; in spite of the album boasting those hits, it went out of print as mostly everything George recorded in the mid 1980's period; Have no fear...it's available as an MP3 digitial download so the material lives on in the digital age.

1983

Released in the latter part of 1983, this album went by without much notice...you'd think an album named after his outdoor music park would generate interest but Epic didn't do anything with the album and as a result it's not remembered but it's a great album...and it did reach the Top-30 on the country album chart...so it wasn't completely over-looked...but none of the songs were promoted as singles; I wrote at length about this album and the outdoor music park, Jones Country, within the blog pages to the left of this time-line.

1984

such a wonderful duets album is this one from George and a host of female country singers; the album boasts 9 duets and 1 solo song; The solo song is "She's My Rock", which was a huge hit for George in the fall of 1984; after the single fell back down the charts the follow-up was issued...a duet with Brenda Lee on a song called "Hallelujah, I Love You So", which promptly hit the Top-20 in early 1985...as did the third single from this album, a duet with Lacy J Dalton entitled "Size Seven Round and Made of Gold"; Some of the other highlights is the duet with Leona Williams, "Best Friends", and the duet with Loretta on "We Sure Make Good Love"...Emmylou Harris, one of George's biggest fans, appears on "All Fall Down".

1985

Featuring the Top-5 title track, "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?", this album contained a few positive, feel-good songs in addition to the standard sad, heartbreak songs, too; The title track was made into an award winning music video; Two more songs became hits as well, "The One I Loved Back Then" matched the success of the title track while "Somebody Wants Me Out of the Way" reached the Top-10 in early 1986; a couple of duets were featured on this album...one of them with Lacy J Dalton called "That's Good...That's Bad" and one with Lynn Anderson called "If Somehow You Could Touch Her At All"; "If I Could Paint You a Picture" is in the pretty song category.

1986

On this particular album we hear George perform a variety of songs...some countrier than others; Patti Page appears on a duet, "You Never Looked That Good When You Were Mine"; A lot of attention was paid to "The Right Left Hand", which was written about George and Nancy; the single hit the Top-10 in early 1987; the title track, "Wine Colored Roses", was a Top-10 in late 1986; a third single, "I Turn To You", reached the Top-30; other highlights from the album are "Ol' Frank", "If Only Your Eyes Could Lie", and "These Old Eyes Have Seen It All".

1990

This here is the rare album, YOU OUGHTA BE HERE WITH ME, that Epic Records issued on George in 1990; the label released two commercial singles from this album...so it wasn't totally ignored...but in hindsight the promotions department didn't spend much time on the release; the singles issued were "Hell Stays Open All Night Long" and the bouncy "Six Foot Deep, Six Foot Down"; George actually performed the second song on his TV show in the late 1990's. This project, too, is available as an MP3.

2006

This reunion album between George and Merle came out in 2006; the album was a moderate success and I pin a lot of blame on the fact that it was not highly promoted/publicized with some kind of tour or any joint appearances; both artist's were extremely busy on the road doing solo dates that a concert tour was impossible...even more ironic is that Haggard was on tour with Willie Nelson and Ray Price around the same time this CD came out....Haggard, Willie, and Ray had recorded an album called LAST OF THE BREED, released early in 2007, a few months after the release of this 2006 album, and the three of them went out on tour to select venue's; on this 2006 album, each singer takes turns singing the hit songs of each other plus they unite in five duet recordings throughout; this reunion album marked the first duet project for the two of them since 1982...this particular 2006 CD was issued in October and the LAST OF THE BREED was issued in March 2007...giving no real time to support the CD on the road.