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.
