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.