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.

Too Wild George Jones...1988

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

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

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

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

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

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

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