George Jones: Jones Country...In My Heart...

The world lost country music legend/icon George Jones back on April 26th at the age of 81. He had been admitted to a local hospital on April 18th and as the world knows he passed away on the 26th. This is a CD of two of his greatest 1980's albums...a pair of albums that had never been issued on CD before. The irony is that this collection became available just three days before his death and the liner notes, written perhaps months earlier, obviously do not reflect the upcoming tragedy. The liner notes were written by one named Michael Heatley. This is an import CD from the United Kingdom. JONES COUNTRY, released in the latter part of 1983, has the distinction of being a great album that was lost through the passage of time. This album features 10 songs...and would you believe that the record company, Epic, never released any singles from it? The album itself made the Top-30 on the Country Album chart and had a nice chart run of nearly 30 weeks and yet nobody (except the truly devoted) is aware of it's existence. In fact, way back in the mid 1990's I wrote a letter to a company (before I got on-line) that prided itself on finding hard to find vinyl albums. The company had placed an advertisement in one of the various country music magazines in print at the time. I sent this company a request list, with JONES COUNTRY as one of the releases, and the reply I received indicated that no such album existed.

Fortunately in the next decade, around 2003 or 2004, I came across a vinyl copy of JONES COUNTRY at an on-line site and I purchased it real quick! At that point in time it was one of two studio albums from George during the 1980's that I didn't have in my collection. The other release that I didn't have at the time was the female duet project, LADIES CHOICE. As luck would have it I came across a vinyl album of that particular release, too, and quickly added it to my collection.

In a word, JONES COUNTRY is outstanding!! The album's title is lifted from an outdoor music park that George owned and operated for a period of years in Texas prior to his and Nancy's return to Nashville in 1989. The two had left Nashville at some point in 1982 prior to their marriage in March of 1983. JONES COUNTRY kicks off with the chilling "Radio Lover". This particular song would appear on a compilation from Epic in 1984 titled BY REQUEST but oddly enough it would actually become a commercial single in 1989...a full 6 years after it's debut on vinyl. It's become a fixture on several compilation albums but hardly anyone knows of it's unique history.

Now, although in-your-face recordings are sometimes still recorded in today's country music it's nothing like it once was...and very seldom do songs where a guy tells off a woman gather much acceptance nowadays in an era where it's seen more as chauvinistic than anything else. "Dream On", the album's second track, is a song about a guy informing a woman in his life that he's doing perfectly fine without her and she's dreaming if she thinks that he can't function on his own. "Hello Trouble", a hit for Buck Owens several decades before, is done in great fashion by George as is the lonesome "Burning Bridges", track four. "Burning Bridges" had been a hit single by a singer named Jack Scott in the late 1960's. George's 1983 recording of "Burning Bridges" and the 1983 recording of "Radio Lover" were later included on George's 1989 album, ONE WOMAN MAN. Track five on JONES COUNTRY is the sorrowful "Wino the Clown". This song tells about a homeless wino and the misadventures he has as he makes his way through perhaps the seedy side of town. There's a twist at the end of the song, though.

A pure honky-tonk classic, "You Must Have Walked Across My Mind Again", is track six. In it, George tells of waking up in jail after a wild night of drinking and mayhem. The album's only poignant moment comes with "I'd Rather Die Young Than Grow Old Without You", track seven. Even though it's a romantic song it still carries a hint of danger because we're not too sure of what the man truly could or would do if the woman ever decides to leave him for someone else. One of my all-time favorites from George, "The Girl at the End of the Bar", is next! The music grabs you, first off, and then the story itself of a man who sings about a common scenario of seeing a woman by herself in some bar room. George tells us that she's not there to have a merry old time so it's best to just keep a distance. This is followed by the uptempo "One of These Days But Not Tonight" which celebrates the notion of going sober...but not tonight...there's too much fun to be had. The album closes with the ballad "Famous Last Words" of which George sings about a woman who promised to stay with the man she was with but as things are more likely to do she leaves him for someone else. In the meantime he can't get over those "Famous Last Words"...

Once JONES COUNTRY had been released to retail stores in the latter part of 1983, as mentioned, there were no commercial singles released. Instead, George was heard in duet form with Ray Charles on "We Didn't See a Thing" which also featured lead guitar work from Chet Atkins (credited on the single release as well) so it was technically a trio. This recording, originally found on Ray's FRIENDSHIP album, reached the Top-10 on the country charts in the early part of 1984. Epic/CBS, George's label, featured "We Didn't See a Thing" on the BY REQUEST compilation the same year.

This fills the gap and brings us to 1984's YOU'VE STILL GOT A PLACE IN MY HEART release. Unlike JONES COUNTRY, Epic promoted the 1984 studio album and it reached the Top-20 on the Country album chart. It also didn't hurt that during 1984 there came a biography release on George titled Ragged But Right, written by Dolly Carlisle. It just so happened that one of the songs on George's 1984 album was his re-recording of "I'm Ragged But I'm Right". He had originally recorded the song sometime in the mid '50s. Epic released only one single from this album, though. The title track, "You've Still Got a Place In My Heart", reached the Top-10.

As part of the publicity for the 1984 album, George taped an episode of New Country, a television program on the relatively new cable channel, The Nashville Network. The program was an album spotlight show where each episode featured a different country singer performing almost all the songs from a newly released or upcoming album. This album followed the same musical path of JONES COUNTRY but the label decided to abandon the ballad, uptempo, ballad sequence and instead fill side one of the album (the first five songs) with ballads. The next three were uptempo sing-a-longs while the final two were ballads.

Some of the finest ballads you'd want to hear are "The Second Time Around" which could easily make one think of George's newly found happiness with Nancy. "Come Sundown", "Learning To Do Without Me", "From Strangers, To Lovers, To Friends", and "Your Lying Blue Eyes" are all top-notch ballads. "Learning To Do Without Me", the album's closer, is ironic given the mostly positive feeling following throughout the love songs. The title, "Even the Bad Times Are Good", tells exactly what the song is all about. It's long been reported that in the early years of George and Nancy's marriage the road was rocky and a song like this one seemed to carry a whole different meaning when recorded by George Jones during this point in time.

If you notice, several of the songs on here as well as several on JONES COUNTRY had been recorded by other artists. "Come Sundown", written by Kris Kristofferson, had actually been recorded by George earlier in his career but Bobby Bare had the more widely known recording. Conway Twitty, among others, had recorded "Even The Bad Times Are Good". Even the album's title track, "You've Still Got a Place In My Heart", from the pen of Leon Payne, had been around for quite awhile. It had previously been recorded by Con Hunley in 1978. His version became a Top-20 country hit but it forever more became a George Jones classic in 1984.

"Your Lying Blue Eyes" had been a single for John Anderson several years prior. Anderson had also co-wrote "The Girl at the End of the Bar" from JONES COUNTRY and also co-wrote a gospel song that George recorded in 1979 called "Swoop Down, Sweet Jesus" (that recording would finally make it to disc in 1990 on HALLELUJAH WEEKEND). On the lighter side we have the previously mentioned "I'm Ragged But I'm Right" and we also have the cute "Courtin' in the Rain" in which George tells the story of a young couple and their gradual evolution from dating to attempted marriage...and the man's shyness throughout it all. "Loveshine" is an uptempo honky-tonk song that ironically celebrates sobriety and how great the future looks without the influence of alcohol.

JONES COUNTRY and YOU'VE STILL GOT A PLACE IN MY HEART are two outstanding back to back releases from George Jones and if you're reading this and have no idea about these albums until now don't wait around...there's no telling how long this will remain in print.

Here's the Amazon LINK for anyone thinking about adding this to your collections.

George Jones: 1931-2013

 The news broke early this morning of the death of George Jones at the age of 81. I was sleeping when the news broke...someone in my family woke me up and asked me if I knew that George had died. The news must have broke right after I fell asleep this morning because it was news to me when I woke up. The local classic country station had been playing George's songs even more frequently since the day he had entered the hospital on April 18th and so I clicked the radio on as soon as I was informed about the news and I caught the middle of the disc jockey talking about George's life and times. The host took calls from a lot of listeners and played several of his #1 hits for the remainder of his show. I'd been a fan of George's since I was barely 5 or 6 years old. My grandparent's and others in the family are responsible for my introduction to his songs and given the year I was born (1976) I grew up with the 1980's era and beyond and as those who've read my blog entries are quick to find out I gravitate toward those recordings but I love pretty much all his recordings. His signature song is 1980's "He Stopped Loving Her Today" which hit #1 and was the recipient of many awards for both the artist and songwriters. It was one of the very few recordings to win back to back CMA Song of the Year honors (1980 and 1981). It was Single of the Year in 1980 and 1981 in a wide variety of award programs and he won Male Vocalist and Male Artist trophies in both years. The song won a Grammy early in 1981. His 1980 studio album, I Am What I Am, continues to be his only studio album, as of now, to sell more than 1,000,000 copies and earn a Platinum certification. Several compilation releases have been certified Platinum or higher but I Am What I Am remains the only studio album from his lengthy career to achieve the Platinum pinnacle.

In the above picture it's the cassette copy of You've Still Got a Place In My Heart, a wonderful 1984 album, and off to the right it's the cassette copy of 1983's Jones Country...an incredibly obscure release and just as great as anything he issued in that era. Each of those albums, released back to back in late 1983 and early 1984, were issued in a 2-in-1 CD special a couple of days ago. I knew of it's upcoming release and I was going to wait a few days before ordering it...but I put in my order for it earlier this morning. Call it being selfish but I couldn't help but think with the news of his death a lot of his music will be much sought after and in some cases collections available exclusively on CD might go out of print especially if it happens to be an import collection like the one I ordered this morning. Import collections are often in limited quantities as it is but with the news that broke this morning of his death I just had this feeling that if I didn't place my order as soon as possible I'd not have another chance. I have those two releases in vinyl format, too.

In the coming hours, days, and weeks there are sure to be a long list of high profile memorials and tributes. Just like millions of others who've made the life and music of George Jones a part of their own lives, it feels awful to come to the realization that he's physically no longer with us, and that a long standing champion of traditional country music has gone silent. Some have remarked that it's like the end of an era...for it seems as if it was George Jones and only George Jones that spoke up and said what was on a lot of our minds 20+ years ago when all the changes were going on in country music and country radio...changes that a lot of us didn't really understand back then. 
 

The hard life, the ups and downs, and all the scandals, controversies, and soap opera often played up in the national media is part of his story but it's not the only part. 1987's "Too Wild Too Long" is just one of many, many recordings from George that mixed reality and artistry. Although by 1987 he had been on the road to recovery (from both alcohol and drugs) it was still a slice of real life being sung about all throughout the song that somebody out there could relate to in some way or another. George once remarked that just because he had quit living wild and doing drugs it didn't mean others had been able to beat their demons and begin living healthy once again. Too Wild Too Long contains a mixture of uptempo and ballads with one of the major highlights being the sad, sorrowful tale of "The Old Man No One Loves". The song became his second music video following 1985's award winning "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?". The album kicks off with another example of a song that comes across as if it was written just for George...the triumphant "I'm a Survivor", which he certainly was. In 1987 he was named a Living Legend by Music City News magazine. This was the fan's equivalent to the Hall of Fame. Five years later, in the fall of 1992, George Jones at long last became a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. The plaque was given to him by Randy Travis during the CMA Awards moments after George had finished performing the rousing "I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair". A year later he teamed up with B.B. King for a powerful duet titled "Patches" for the highly acclaimed various artists project, Rhythm, Country, and Blues. That collection was also notable for featuring the last recording by Conway Twitty, a duet with Sam Moore on "Rainy Night in Georgia".

He was given the Pioneer Award at the Academy of Country Music awards in 1993. In 1994 he had heart surgery but emerged later in the year in full force and another album, the duet driven project entitled The Bradley Barn Sessions. The project reunited George and Tammy Wynette in song for the first time since 1980. A television special featuring George and all involved aired on TNN. Several months later, by early 1995, an entire reunion album and tour was being planned. One, the duet album, was their first album together in 15 years. Their tour marked the first time they'd been on the road as a duet since the mid '70s. This project also came complete with an hour long television special on TNN. In 1996 George issued his autobiography titled I Lived To Tell It All. Accompanying the book's release was a studio album of the same name. It's lead-off single, "Honky Tonk Song", spoofed his alcoholic days and the music video shown him being chased by the police while he was on a riding mower.

George had his own television show for a couple of seasons on The Nashville Network in the mid/late '90s but the decade ended on a controversial note. In 1999 he was involved in a car accident when he crashed his S.U.V. into the side of a concrete abutment. It was reported that alcohol was found inside the vehicle. George, as it was reported, was talking on his cell-phone and went to play a demo recording and he took his eyes off the road for a couple of seconds and that's all it took. During his recovery, his record label at the time issued a new single, "Choices". It was later part of a new studio album, Cold Hard Truth. The single reached the Top-30 on the country charts, his first solo entry on the Top-40 half of the country charts since early 1994's Top-30 hit, "High Tech Redneck". In between that single and 1999's "Choices" he was on the Top-40 as a prominent background vocalist on the Patty Loveless hit, "You Don't Seem To Miss Me". The single would go on to win an award in the Vocal Event/Collaboration category. "Choices", in the meantime, won a Grammy...becoming George's second Grammy win. Two of his recordings were placed in the Grammy Hall of Fame: 1962's "She Thinks I Still Care" and 1980's "He Stopped Loving Her Today". In 2012 he won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award.

His popularity never waned or diminished...in 1999 and 2001 he enjoyed lengthy album successes with Cold Hard Truth and The Rock: Stone Cold Country 2001, each release hitting the Top-5 on the country album chart. The 1999 release sold half a million copies rather quickly. Another late '90s release, 16 Biggest Hits, sold half a million copies as did a 50 year CD release in 2004 titled 50 Years of Hits. Although not noted as a humongous sales artist, George, in truth, racked up quite a few Gold and Platinum releases through the decades and he did so, more or less, without the benefit of a crossover hit or hardly any acclaim from the pop music world whatsoever. Country music albums rarely, if ever, appeared higher than #100 on the Billboard 200, the official name for the pop album chart, until the 1990's...few made it to the Top-40 portion.  

I Am What I Am, George's 1980 studio album, became his first Gold album and then it went Platinum. By the early '90s several more of his 1980's albums were certified. Still the Same Ole Me, from 1981, and 1986's Wine Colored Roses were both certified Gold in 1990 and 1994 respectively. A 1982 release, Anniversary: 10 Years of Hits, was certified Gold in 1989. In the mid '90s a 1977 duet album from George and Tammy titled Greatest Hits, re-issued on CD, was certified Gold. 1992's Walls Can Fall and 1993's High Tech Redneck, each achieved Gold status. To date, the George Jones release that has sold the most copies is 1987's Super Hits. This particular collection was certified Gold and Platinum in the early '90s and then it obtained Double-Platinum status (2,000,000+ copies sold) in the early 2000's. There was a follow-up, Super Hits, Volume Two, but this collection didn't achieve the sales heights of it's predecessor mostly because of little promotion/publicity and the fact that his current releases on MCA in the early to mid '90s were so popular with audiences.

One of the feats that will certainly not be equaled is the amount of chart singles, hit albums, and total Top-40 country singles that he racked up from 1955 through 2011. A compilation simply titled Hits reached the country charts in the spring of 2011, placing in the Top-40. Previous releases such as Burn Your Playhouse Down: The Unreleased Duets hit the Top-20 on the Country album chart in 2008. A Collection of My Best Recollection reached the Top-30 on the Country album chart in 2009. What all of this shows, the sales certifications and the appearances on the album chart with frequency well into the 2000's, is that George Jones was still reaching people and connecting with people some 50+ years after the release of his first singles in the mid 1950's.

As I touched upon at the start of the blog, George had been admitted to the hospital on April 18th for a fever and irregular blood pressure. There hadn't been much news surface in the days since until the news broke this morning of his death at the age of 81. He was in the process of retiring from the road and the music business this year...embarking on a farewell tour which was scheduled to wrap up in November at a huge event in Nashville. There are no doubt countless blogs out there that will touch upon George's music and life in much more detail as the hours and days go by but I wanted to post my own salute and so that's what I did. I wasn't as active in this blog given that there are already dozens of blogs about George Jones that pop up all the time and no doubt would have the same information that I'd be blogging about and so I kept this blog to a minimum...making posts whenever I came across something I felt I could say something about...something that would be different from others out there.

As a fan do you want to know one of the toughest questions asked about George Jones? Well, one of the things that any fan of George Jones will tell you right away is that you never, ever ask "What is your favorite George Jones song?" in the singular. It's a whole lot more appropriate to ask "What are your favorite George Jones songs?". It's impossible, for me, to single out just one recording out of hundreds upon hundreds of songs...single releases and album tracks...and say 'yes, that's my favorite George Jones song'. If you try and do that you'll be singing another of his songs to yourself and saying how wonderful it is...and then once you do this you'll be thinking of another of his songs that you love just as much. 

In closing I want to share a few links that will take you to some special moments in George's career. The first link is the 1987 presentation, by Loretta Lynn, of the Music City News Living Legend award. The tradition of the previous year's recipient presenting the next year's recipient would remain in place for the duration of the award franchise. George, in turn, would present the award in 1988 to Conway Twitty. The ultimate honor in country music, election to the Hall of Fame, is seen in link two. The third link is the Pioneer Award, presented to George several months after the Hall of Fame enshrinement.

1987 Music City News Living Legend

1992 Country Music Hall of Fame

1993 ACM Pioneer Award

George Jones ~Shine On~ 1931-2013

George Jones 2 album on 1 CD...

Those of you familiar with my reviews of George Jones releases through the years are probably aware that I often gravitate toward his '70s and '80s albums for Epic. His career dates back to the '50s and practically every fan has a favorite era.

The funny thing, for me at least, is a lot of fans are strongly passionate, either for or against, the various era's in his career. Those who strongly champion his earliest recordings rarely give much thought to the songs he recorded after, say, 1964. Some feel as if his songs were much better when there was minimal instrumental accompaniment while others feel his recordings gained more widespread success and acclaim once the recordings adopted a mainstream sound. Some feel his recordings became increasingly better once he joined the Epic label but then others feel the Epic recordings ruined the minimal, bare bones raw sound that had been a trademark of the early years by having orchestral accompaniment and immaculately produced sounds backing George's distinct vocals.

Even today a lot of critics make it clear that the 1954-1964 decade in George's career is their preferred time period.

I don't necessarily champion any era of his career...his recordings are great no matter what time period they were recorded in...but I gravitate toward the Epic days if only for the fact that it was those very recordings that I grew up hearing and liking. My grandparents, as well as my parents, had some vinyl albums, cassettes, and some 8-tracks of George Jones. The 1982 compilation, Anniversary: Ten Years of Hits, introduced me to the 1970's recordings of George.

I was thrilled to see that these two 1980's George Jones albums, Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes and Wine Colored Roses, were being issued on a single CD together!

One of the oddities of the CD's cover art is that they use an early '70s picture of George next to the thumbnail images of his 1985 and 1986 studio albums. On the back of the CD it looks to be a mid '70s publicity photo of George. The liner notes are written by an author named Chris Bolton and there are a couple of typo's and a song given a slightly incorrect title.

Those not familiar with the song won't catch this mistake but the author refers to a duet George did with Lacy J. Dalton in 1984. He refers to the song as "Size Seven Gold" but the actual title is "Size Seven Round and Made of Gold". The duet was a Top-20 hit in early 1985 but it was overshadowed by the recurrent radio popularity of a late 1984 solo single from George titled "She's My Rock" as well as the release of the future classic, "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?", later in 1985. In other words, the Top-20 duet was sandwiched between two massively popular solo singles from George.

The fold-out containing the liner notes are filled with pictures taken of George during the '70s and '80s...including a picture of George and Tammy taken during what appears to be photo sessions for their 1980 reunion album, Together Again, plus a second picture of the two taken during the early '70s appear toward the end of the fold-out.

As far as the music goes it's all wonderful! The project kicks off with the 1985 album, Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes. There are 10 songs on each album. The running time given is just short of 1 hour. The hit songs from the 1985 album are "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?", "The One I Loved Back Then", and the obscure "Somebody Wants Me Out of the Way". The latter release became a hit early in 1986 but was overshadowed largely by the first two releases from the album. "The One I Loved Back Then" became a hugely popular song on radio and in concert. It deals with a play on words and a misunderstanding between George and a man he meets at a convenient store while discussing Corvettes. The song became so synonymous with George that the Corvette became a permanent fixture in his personal life, too. Publicity pictures of George and Corvettes began appearing in country music magazines. Many times in the early and mid '90s George was spotted at various local car shows...admiring the Corvette section, of course. A 1993 album shows George standing in front of a Corvette. "The One I Loved Back Then", subtitled "The Corvette Song", reached the Top-5 early in 1986.

Meanwhile, on a more serious note, "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?" honored the heroes and legends of music and a riveting music video was filmed...winning a fan-voted award in 1986 as Music Video of the Year from the readers of Music City News magazine. "Somebody Wants Me Out of the Way" is in the cheating song category and it became a Top-10 hit in mid 1986.

I like the entire 1985 album. It also features two duet recordings: Lynn Anderson joins George on "If You Could Touch Her At All" while Lacy J. Dalton appears with George on "That's Good - That's Bad". One of my favorites, besides the hits, is "Just When". There's just something about that song and his vocal performance that makes a person wonder why it was never released as a single. There's a great narration segment as well.

The album is ballad heavy and the only mid to uptempo recordings are "The One I Loved Back Then", "A Whole Lot of Trouble For You", and "Call The Wrecker For My Heart". In later years, much of the 1990's specifically, George's albums would feature more mid-tempo and uptempo recordings and just a few ballads. I assume the reason for that is due to the popular belief that country songs only sell if they're dance-friendly and uptempo!?

Wine Colored Roses came along in 1986 and it, too, is ballad heavy. The album's first three songs were released as singles throughout the latter half of 1986 into mid 1987. "Wine Colored Roses", one the many songs dealing with alcohol in George's career, leads off the album. A ballad, it was issued as a single late in 1986 and it tells the story of a man who gets a letter from an estranged lover asking several questions. One question in particular is if he's stopped drinking. The song's follow-up was "The Right Left Hand" in early 1987. This particular song is mid-tempo and it was written especially about George's personal life and his marriage to Nancy. The two of them married in 1983 and have remained together for 29 years. This song reached the Top-10 in the spring of 1987.

Joining that recording as mid-tempo is "Ol' Frank", track 19. This song tells a very familiar gold-digging story of a younger woman marrying an older man for his money. It's a whimsical tale as is the much more uptempo "The Very Best of Me". In that song George refers to an ex-wife which no doubt will conjure up memories of his previous marriage to Tammy Wynette. George duets with Patti Page on the mid-tempo "You Never Looked That Good When You Were Mine". As you can tell by it's title the song was playful as two former lovers see one another in their later years and, based strictly on appearance, regret not staying together. "Don't Leave Without Taking Your Silver" is one of my favorites. It's title has a double meaning. One of the greatest songs he recorded during the 1980's is the album's closer, "These Old Eyes Have Seen It All". Once you hear it you'll be saying the same thing.

"I Turn To You" became a single in the summer of 1987 and it reached the Top-30...an early victim of country radio's New Country brand. It's a sentimental song and a ballad about love affirmation. I feel if the song had been recorded and released a couple of years earlier it would've been a much more bigger hit.

By late 1987 the New Country brand was being heavily promoted at country radio...there were still quite a few outlets for established country artists to get their albums and songs publicized to a mass audience. This was accomplished mostly through appearances on The Nashville Network and Hee-Haw. There were also magazine publications that were still in print that catered to the audiences of the established country singers.

What was going on, though, from 1987 onward was a distinct difference between what was largely being heard on country radio and what was being viewed on country music television programs. It was very common, in 1994 for example, to turn a country radio station on and hear a lot of New Country artists but then switch on The Nashville Network later that day and see a lot of artists that country audiences knew but weren't hearing on the radio with any degree of consistency anymore. So, for a period of 4 or 5 years, country radio and country TV catered to two distinct demographics. Nowadays the radio and TV outlets for country music are indistinguishable. Unless you're one of the chosen that gets radio airplay you more or less won't get the opportunity to appear on any number of TV shows that focus on country music, either.

You can purchase the CD through the following link...2 album on 1 CD. I'll soon copy and paste this review over on Amazon's product page.

George Jones: The Hits...Then 'Til Now

This box set collection from Time Life is chock full of George Jones goodness. Myself being a statistics and nostalgia nut I also enjoy the booklet that accompanies the collection. It contains a lot of wonderful pictures of George through the years. Some of the pictures were brand new to me so that was an added bonus. There isn't much to complain or criticize about in my opinion...not that I'm one to complain when it comes to the music of George Jones. Having said that I do wish that when they were putting this collection together they would have did a better song sequence on the CD's. This is a 3 CD set. Each CD contains 20 songs. On CD #1, for example, most of the earliest songs are found but track 18 from 1965, "Love Bug", is sandwiched between a hit song from 1969 and 1971. CD #2 kicks off with early '60s hits even though CD #1 left off with "A Good Year For the Roses", an early 1971 Top-5 hit.

George's 1978 duet with Johnny PayCheck, "Maybelline", is track #11 on CD #2 sandwiched between 1972's "A Picture of Me Without You" and 1973's "Once You've Had the Best". George's 1980 duet with Tammy Wynette, "Two Story House", is located on CD #2 as track 15. The songs before and after the 1980 hit are both from 1974. So it goes 1974, 1980, 1974...

This sort of thing may not annoy a mass market but it's annoying when songs leap from one era to the next and then back again on a box set. If this were a run of the mill "Greatest Hits" CD I wouldn't have an issue about song sequences but on a box set I wish the songs would be arranged in chronological order.

Ironically the box set doesn't include his 1999 hit, "Choices". Instead of selecting either that hit song from 1999 or "Cold Hard Truth", the compiler of the box set chose "When The Last Curtain Falls". The last song on CD #3 is "Tramp On Your Street" from 2001. As far as charts go, the compiler of the collection could have went with "The Man He Was" or George's duet with Garth Brooks, "Beer Run", to represent 2001 but instead chose "Tramp On Your Street". That song is great but it wasn't a single or a chart hit as the other two from 2001 were. There is no material on this collection from 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, or 1998. The song, "I'm a One Woman Man", became the title of his 1989 album but technically it was recorded and released late in 1988. The two singles from 1989, "The King Is Gone and So Are You" and "Writing On the Wall", were not selected for this collection. In 1990 he had a duet hit with Randy Travis, "A Few Ole Country Boys". In 1991 he had a few chart hits with his MCA debut that are not spotlighted here: "Honky Tonk Myself To Death", "She Loved a Lot In Her Time", and "You Couldn't Get The Picture". The third song reached the Top-40 of the country charts.

Since the material from this 1987 album/cassette wasn't spotlighted on the 2008 box set I think I'll spotlight it. I've wrote about this album before. Titled Too Wild Too Long it includes three singles: "The Bird", "The Old Man No One Loves", and "I'm a Survivor". The album also includes his version of "New Patches" which was a hit for Mel Tillis several years earlier. The title track is a hard-core country song, too. It's about a man who's lifestyle isn't suited for settling down with anyone and it refers to "not showing up" which makes listeners think of George's past reputation of not showing up at concerts. The lead-off song, "I'm a Survivor", fits George like a glove. It was issued as a single in late 1987 but surprisingly it stalled on the charts in the Top-60...marking the first time since the mid 1970's that a George Jones single didn't reach the Top-40 section of the country charts.

Soon afterward, "The Old Man No One Loves" was made into a music video as video's had become one of the most important promotional tools because it gave a visual to a song's lyrics. Some artist's resisted making music videos, notably Conway Twitty and George Strait, because they feared that music videos over-exposed an artist visually and it created a scenario where a fan couldn't envision a song in his or her own mind if there's a music video indirectly stating how a song should be interpreted. George Jones had made a music video for "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?" and it won a CMA Award for "Music Video of the Year" at the 1986 gala. "The Old Man No One Loves" didn't win such an award and it's so scarce that a lot of fans don't even remember a music video being made of the song. The song reached the Top-65 in 1988...charting even lower than "I'm a Survivor". This was the beginning of the slow radio decline that came into full effect in the early 1990's. The radio decline that was set in motion in the late 1980's eventually ended the strong airplay of not only George Jones but also Dolly Parton, Ronnie Milsap, Conway Twitty, Charlie Pride, Kenny Rogers, Vern Gosdin, Earl Thomas Conley, The Gatlin Brothers, Ricky Van Shelton, Ricky Skaggs, and several other popular artists who gained fame in the 1970's and 1980's.

The "New Country" movement that was beginning in the late '80s and in full-swing by 1992 had replaced all of those artists on the radio throughout the first half of the 1990's. The new artists were Clint Black, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt, Vince Gill, Mark Chesnutt, Sawyer Brown, Diamond Rio, Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, and others. Vince Gill, actually, had been a fixture in Nashville for several years before becoming a recording star in the early 90's. He was most noted for being a harmony singer before gaining huge fame in 1991. Sawyer Brown had been having success since the late '80s but they became bigger stars in the 1990's during the youth-movement where country artists were being judged by the record labels and radio stations by not only how many albums they were selling but also by the age make-up of their fans. Established country acts whose fans were mostly 35 years old and older and barely sold half a million albums each release were tossed aside at country radio in favor of the younger/youth-attractive acts whose albums were selling a million or more copies each release. The new artists that I mentioned, with the exception of a couple, are no longer heard on the radio too much. Alan Jackson still cranks out the Top-10 songs and sometimes Martina McBride is high on the charts as well but the rest of them you can't say the same thing about. Although those artists are still being played on the radio they don't have the consistent Top-10 hits they once did with the exception of Alan Jackson.

1983...wasn't that a wonderful year in George's career and personal life? You bet it was! 1983 is the year George married his current wife, Nancy. It's also the year he had four Top-10 hits...one of them reaching #1. Three of those Top-10 hits came from this album. It's Shine On. For those younger fans you may not know much about George's 1983-1984 output. The material he recorded during this time isn't well spotlighted. Basically nowadays what people do when they put together compilation albums on George is they often forget several of the hit songs from this time period. Sure, they include a song or two, but not an entire reflection of hits. Three Top-10 hits are on this album: "Shine On", "Tennessee Whiskey", and the #1 "I Always Get Lucky With You". A fourth Top-10, "C.C. Waterback", was a duet with Merle Haggard earlier in the year from their duet album from 1982, A Taste of Yesterday's Wine. 1983 is also the year George opened up his outdoor country music park, Jones Country. An album of the same name was released later in 1983 but not one song from that album was released as a single.

Shine On in addition to the three hit songs includes the self-deprecating "Ol' George Stopped Drinking Today". The song isn't about George no longer drinking...it's actually about death being the only thing that stopped George from drinking. It's a clever and cute sing-a-long that closes the album. A not so cute song is "The Show's Almost Over", track nine. It's a sad ballad about a man who's living in hell as a result of chasing his dreams of being a famous singer.

Some country music purists may not like the overt pop flavor of "I Should've Called" but I love it. George tackles a song that several country artists have recorded but have never released as a single: "I'd Rather Have What We Had". John Conlee recorded it in 1981; Conway and Loretta recorded it as a duet in 1981; and in 1998 Lee Ann Womack recorded the song as a duet with Joe Diffie.

George Jones: We Support You!!

As the familiar lyrics of George's early 1982 Top-5 hit will reassure, George Jones is still himself throughout anything and everything that comes his way. Whether it's self-inflicted or media-created, the good days and bad days have gone hand-in-hand. The reason for this rally/support blog is due to some unsavory commentary being made around the internet about George by those who really have no clue who he his or what he stands for. Apparently a recent interview/article about George seeped into the world's of Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift fan-bases. I have no idea what caused the story to gain much traction given that the majority of listeners of either of those two aren't necessarily paying much attention to George Jones in the first place...

But, in this internet age, and largely because both Underwood and Swift's names were mentioned, overly jealous and or overly-protective fans of both artist's have flipped out. Surprisingly, though, or ironic, the comments made by George in the most recent interview about 'modern country music' gained widespread publication. Do I think it's a conspiracy? I don't think it is but something is certainly strange because similar comments from George over the last decade and a half never reached this sort of coverage. The thing that irks me the most is that George never attacked either artist...he simply pointed out that the country music industry has reverted back to propping up pop-oriented acts. Although it was short and brief, there was a period of time in the earlier part of this decade where it appeared traditional country was returning to prominence but with the emergence of Underwood and Taylor Swift it appears Nashville and other towns that market country music want to jump on their bandwagon much like they did Garth Brooks in 1990 and we all know what happened in the aftermath of Garth Brooks. Country radio did an about face and started to decline the airplay of proven artists in favor of Garth Brooks and those who followed.

What followed, for George, was an abrupt end to his airplay. Every so often a recurrent would air from George during the early 1990's but the airplay was nothing compared to the airplay he had enjoyed since the 1950's. Ever since this point in his career there's been a back and fourth, on-again/off-again verbal war between George and most country radio. Think about it...it's 2009...that means people who are teens and early twenty-something's now who listen to country radio aren't too familiar with George Jones or his contemporaries unless they, on their own, discover the music via the internet or on a "classic country" radio station. Someone born in 1992 is 17 now...their identity of country music is all the material that was played throughout the late '90s into today. When you look at it from that perspective you can see why a lot of people in George's era are rightfully upset. Their music isn't being promoted to millions of younger generations via the radio. George has a wide fan-base of all ages. I can bet you that most of the younger following that George enjoys didn't learn of him hearing his songs on the radio. What happened is the internet allows music to be heard...whether it's commercial or not...and I think a lot of the teenagers and young adults who cite George Jones as one of their favorite country singers discovered his music on their own and became hooked on it. Also, word of mouth and a hefty touring schedule also helps. When I brought up 17 years old's today having been born in 1992...I was 17 in 1993...so you can tell that I grew up in the era where George, Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, George Strait, Alabama, Reba, and a few others dominated the airwaves.

I know some people out there will go:

"geeze, why hasn't he moved on already? this loss of airplay thing happened in the early 1990's and it's 2009!!".

Well, for those who think like that, you obviously don't really know how much country music means to George Jones.

For those out there who want to take cheap shots at George by labeling him a "has-been" or a "whiner" or whatever else need to research his career through this blog and others. Once you do you'll see how his views on country music have really never wavered through the years. Even in the 1970's during the beginning of his incredible run with Epic Records and Billy Sherrill, George was still on occasion speaking his mind about the pop influence in country music even when his own songs carried a pop flavor. In concert his songs were stripped of their pop arrangements and sung just as country as ever. If you watch George on TV or attended a concert and he starts to sing the songs that featured the heavy pop-like instrumentation on the recording, they won't sound the same. You'll be thinking to yourself "something is missing...but I don't know what it is...". Well, it's the grand orchestration that's missing.

So, the bottom line is, George's thoughts and feelings of country music is nothing new and it just feels suspicious that bloggers and message boards that, to my knowledge, have never touched a George Jones story in the past suddenly are now taking notice of viewpoints that a lot of us long time fans of George are quite familiar with and rather accept...but, moving on...

For those who want to hear one of the best George Jones albums from the 1980's you'll have to look no further than Wine Colored Roses from 1986. Now, this is just one of his best. In my opinion a lot of his albums are great to listen to. The material on the album is mostly ballads with a few up-tempo songs added in. The singles that were released from the album include the title track in late 1986 and during the first half of 1987 the singles were "The Right Left Hand" and the poetic "I Turn To You". This album was certified Gold in 1994. The album itself was one of his most enduring as far as chart life. Patti Page is featured on this album. She sings a duet with George called "You Never Looked That Good When You Were Mine". George, during this era, was coming off of a successful reputation of being the chosen duet partner amongst many female singers...

On this famed 1985 album, in addition to the three singles, you also hear two duet recordings. Lynn Anderson joins him on "If You Can Touch Her At All" and Lacy J Dalton appears on the album closer, "That's Good-That's Bad". This album also includes the raucous "Call The Wrecker For My Heart" plus the up-tempo "A Whole Lot of Trouble For You". The theme throughout most of George's albums in the 1980's were ballads. The ballads far out-weighed the up-tempo songs. This practice has become so identified with George that some fans feel a bit let down if an album comes along that features mid-tempo or up-tempo material instead of ballads...while the 1986 album featured one duet song with a female and the 1985 album contained two duets with females...

This album that was issued in 1984 jump-started the female duet reputation. An album appropriately titled Ladies Choice contained nine duet recordings and one solo recording. The solo recording, "She's My Rock", became the biggest hit of the year for him. It spent several weeks at #2. Two duet recordings were released in early 1985: Brenda Lee joined him for "Hallelujah, I Love You So" while Lacy J Dalton was paired with him on "Size Seven Round and Made of Gold". Each duet reached the Top-20. The 1980's streak of duet recordings with female artists was a result of the duet craze that was sweeping country music. George himself had a long duet career with Tammy Wynette throughout the 1970's while in the 1960's George often teamed up with Melba Montgomery. However, the influx of duet recordings George took part in during the first half of the 1980's was basically a result of the times. If there wasn't a duet craze a lot of the duets that George took part in may not have even took place. There was a 1983 duet with Ray Charles called "We Didn't See A Thing" which featured Chet Atkins on the lead guitar.

There was the 1982 duet album with Merle Haggard, A Taste of Yesterday's Wine, and two duet albums from 1980, one featuring Tammy entitled Together Again and another with Johnny PayCheck entitled Double Trouble. The duet craze was certainly successful and prolific.

George Jones: A Collection of my Best Recollection

A few weeks ago George Jones issued an exclusive CD to the Cracker Barrel restaurants. The CD, entitled "A Collection of My Best Recollection", features 12 songs. Among the 12, two of them are being promoted as brand new.

1. The Race Is On
2. The Love In Your Eyes
3. Finally Friday
4. I Don't Want to Know**
5. I’m A Long Gone Daddy**
6. The Window Up Above
7. I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair
8. Achin', Breakin' Heart
9. Why Baby Why
10. You're Still on My Mind
11. White Lightnin'
12. He Stopped Loving Her Today

Today, September 12, is the 78th birthday of George Jones. He has made several appearances on non-country music related programs lately. The latest, an appearance on the Fox News Channel program, Huckabee, airs tonight and it repeats at various times throughout the weekend.

The numbers were released a few days ago and this CD joins a long list of Top-40 country albums in his career. This exclusive CD made it's debut inside the Top-30 on the national country album chart this week and it's available only at Cracker Barrel stores and their web-site's on-line store. At age 78, George continues to be the oldest living country music singer to achieve Top-40 album success. Second behind him is Willie Nelson and to a lesser extent, Merle Haggard. Each of those three are well into their 70's and are still capable of issuing hit albums.

This happens to be the week that George turns 78...turning the Top-40 debut of his album into a nice birthday gift.

Hallelujah It's George Jones!!

This particular gospel project came along on the Epic label in 1990 but sharp-eared listeners of the project will be quick to realize that the material was recorded years earlier. I have seen cassette copies on-line indicate 1980 while I have a cassette copy in my collection with the year 1979 indicated...I do know that one of the songs on this album was a b-side of a 1979 George Jones single...and so it's pretty much for certain that the material was recorded during 1979/1980. It was also documented that George would include gospel songs in his concerts around this time period...and there's been commentary made on-line about how these songs were originally recorded for a gospel album that was never released...which explains why a 1990 project would consist of nothing but earlier material.

The album consists of 10 songs...with The Jordanaires and Millie Kirkham doing the background harmonies. George is credited as co-writer on several of the selections. I like all of the songs and my favorites are the up-tempo numbers but I also like the way he delivers the narratives in the slower songs. "A Picture From Life's Other Side" is just as great as you'd expect it to be; by Hank Williams it's a masterpiece in the gallery of gospel music he's noted for and George, given his appreciation of Hank Williams and for having his own gripping narrative style, it's compelling. It's the second song on the album. The family feud reading of "Mama's Family Bible" kicks off the album. The song is about a house being auctioned off after the death of a mother...with family taking a lot of items one by one but nobody bothered to take the bible that was sitting on a shelf...and the song goes on to tell us that once the family got what they wanted, they ended up selling the items, while he kept the bible and never dreamed of selling it.

The tempo picks up quite a bit on song three, the sing-a-long "Me and Jesus" from the pen of Tom T Hall. The song had been a popular hit for Tom T Hall in the early 1970's and George took his shot at recording the song in the late 1970's...even appearing on an episode of Pop! Goes the Country singing the song with host, Tom T Hall. It's a song about a man who's best buddy is Jesus and they really don't need any preaching or any scolding from those who are self-appointed messengers. It also paints a more liberal viewpoint of things with the lyrics in the song of how Jesus likes all kinds, whether they're up-right and moral or not. Naturally, this kind of song isn't a favorite among the more devout.

Song four is "We Oughta Be Ashamed", which appeared in 1979 as the b-side of "Someday My Day Will Come", in which that song carried touches of gospel over-tones as well.

"The Devil Is Gathering Firewood" closes out side one of the album...an up-tempo song about the battle between the Devil and Jesus winning souls and how sinner's better learn how to get on their knee's and pray before it's too late.

"Would They Love Him" is one of the more pointed songs on the album. It tackles religious hypocrisy and it studies the people who say they are Christians and say they believe in God but would they still love him if he came back and insisted that they give up the things that they covet. "Jesus Saves Today" closes out the album...it's one of the more traditional-sounding gospel songs...most of the other gospel songs were arranged strictly country. In between those two songs we have three up-tempo sing-a-long's. "Swoop Down, Sweet Jesus" is a feelgood song about a man who basically lives inside honky-tonk's until he finds Jesus and the title track, "Hallelujah Weekend", is about a family who has a habit of forgetting Sunday's and we're told of a plan in which the gospel spirit can be celebrated all week long by starting your Monday's with Jesus. "The Battle For Daddy's Soul" is one of my favorites as well...it's the story of a woman who wants her husband to give up drinking and find religion. It's sub-titled "The Bible Against the Bottle".

This album, as of this writing, has never been issued as an MP3 and so you're most likely to find it in cassette or CD form at on-line auction sites.

George Jones on Epic Records

Technically, CBS Records was the actual label. Sharp eyes will notice on all of the albums and singles released during the "Epic" days that it stated CBS Records and that Epic was an imprint of CBS, kind of like a subsidiary or affiliate of CBS. In the early years of George's stay on CBS, the album and single labels were bright yellow with the word EPIC written across the top of the label. In the mid 1970's it switched over to the orange label that remained a standard until the late 1970's. Lastly, it struck upon a dark black, light blue combination and a signature logo for "Epic".

Here is an image of the orange label CBS/Epic used on their records in the mid 1970's...



In the music industry there was special singles released to radio and those were usually called "promo singles" or "DJ copy". This indicated that the particular single wasn't for public sale at the same. Naturally, because 45 RPM singles are no longer part of the industry in any profound way, the promo singles have fallen into the public domain. Former DJ's and radio stations often sell promo singles on-line and at flea markets. CBS/Epic used a white label to distinguish it from the commercial single release.

The below single is the promo copy of "Yesterday's Wine", a duet between George and Merle Haggard. The label color is white. You will also get to see the famed "Epic" logo swooping across the top of the sleeve.



That "Epic" logo design would become quite popular...it almost became as popular as the Warner Brothers logo. Note how artistic "Epic" looked in design on that single compared to the way it was written on the orange label of the mid 1970's.

The single below wasn't an official release here in America. I know that the single was issued over-sea's but "One of These Days" was an album song on George's self-titled debut album for CBS/Epic in 1972. In case anyone wants to learn how you can tell if a single by your favorite artist was released in America or England, looking closely at the single you will see "A USA Production" and this vaguely hints that the single was released over-sea's, otherwise why state it's a USA production? On the right side of the label it says it was "Made In England" so chances are it was an over-sea's single and just by looking at those sort of phrases on the label it should pretty much tell you if the single was released to American consumers or the United Kingdom. Sounds fun and exciting, yes?



Here is an example of that bright yellow label CBS/Epic used in the late '60s and early '70s...this is a George and Tammy single...trust me, the yellow was more bright in person than the way it comes off in the image below...



Okay...here's an image of an Epic single from George featuring that dark and blue color pattern, which became the longest-running design for CBS/Epic records. Earlier you saw a promo copy of a George and Merle single but here's a commercial single of a 1984 George Jones hit called "She's My Rock"...



This concludes the "look" at the label designs of CBS/Epic Records during George's stay at the label, 1971-1991.

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