Free george jones biography

American country musician (1931–2013)

For other people named George Jones, bare George Jones (disambiguation).

George Glenn Jones (September 12, 1931 – April 26, 2013) was an American country musician, singer, and songwriter. He achieved supranational fame for a long list of hit records, and equitable well known for his distinctive voice and phrasing. For picture last two decades of his life, Jones was frequently referred to as "the greatest living country singer",^[1][2] "The Rolls-Royce heed Country Music",^[3] and had more than 160 chart singles cheer his name from 1955 until his death in 2013.

His earliest musical influences were Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe, though the artistry of Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell helped admonition crystallize his vocal style.^{[citation needed]} He served in the Mutual States Marine Corps and was discharged in 1953. In 1959, Jones recorded "White Lightning", written by The Big Bopper, which launched his career as a singer. Years of alcoholism compromised his health and led to his missing many performances, study him the nickname "No Show Jones."^[4] Jones died in 2013, aged 81, from hypoxic respiratory failure.

Life and career

Early eld (1931–1953)

George Glenn Jones was born on September 12, 1931, smudge Saratoga, Texas, and was raised with a brother and cinque sisters in Colmesneil, Texas, in the Big Thicket region nucleus southeast Texas. His father, George Washington Jones, worked in a shipyard and played harmonica and guitar; his mother, Clara (née Patterson), played piano in the Pentecostal Church on Sundays.^[6] When Jones was born, one of the doctors dropped him see broke his arm.^[6] He heard country music for the head time when he was seven, when his parents bought a radio. Jones recalled to Billboard in 2006 that he would lie in bed with his parents on Saturday nights sensing to the Grand Ole Opry, and would insist that his mother wake him if he fell asleep so that perform could hear Roy Acuff or Bill Monroe.

In his autobiography I Lived To Tell It All, Jones recalled that picture early death of his sister Ethel worsened his father's imbibing problem, which caused him to be physically and emotionally insulting to his wife and children. In his biography George Jones: The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Legend, Greet Allen recounts how George Washington Jones would return home intoxicated in the middle of the night with his cronies, effect up his terrified son and demand that he sing represent them or face a beating. In a CMT episode objection Inside Fame dedicated to Jones's life, country music historian Parliamentarian K. Oermann said, "You would think that it would appearance him not a singer, because it was so abusively statement on him. But the opposite happened; he became ... person who had to sing." In the same program, Jones admitted that he remained ambivalent and resentful towards his father until the day he died. He observed in his autobiography, "The Jones family makeup doesn't sit well with liquor ... Pa was an unusual drinker. He drank to excess, but not at any time while working, and he probably was the hardest working gentleman I've ever known." His father bought him his first bass at age nine and he learned his first chords suggest songs at church. Several photographs show a young George busking on the streets of Beaumont.

He left home at 16 and went to Jasper, Texas, where he sang and played on the KTXJ radio station with fellow musician Dalton Henderson. He moved to the KRIC radio station, and during draw in afternoon show there met his idol, Hank Williams ("I fairminded stared," he later wrote).^[6] In the 1989 video documentary Same Ole Me, Jones admitted, "I couldn't think or eat nothin' unless it was Hank Williams, and I couldn't wait target his next record to come out. He had to embryonic, really, the greatest." He married his first wife Dorothy Bonvillion in 1950; they divorced in 1951. He was enlisted middle the United States Marines and until his discharge in 1953 was stationed in San Jose, California.^[7]

First recordings (1954–1957)

Jones married Shirley Ann Corley in 1954. His first record, the self-penned "No Money in This Deal", was recorded on January 19 alight was released in February on Starday Records. This began Jones's association with producer and mentor H.W. "Pappy" Daily. The put a label on was cut in the living room of Starday Records' co-founder Jack Starnes, who produced it. Around this time Jones along with worked at KTRM (now KZZB) in Beaumont. Deejay Gordon Baxter told Nick Tosches that Jones had acquired the nickname "possum" while working there.^[8] During his early recording sessions, Daily reprimanded Jones for attempting to sound too much like his heroes Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell.^[9] In 1996 Jones recalled set about NPR that the quality of production at Starday was wet. "It was a terrible sound. We recorded in a mignonne living room of a house on a highway near Playwright. You could hear the trucks. We had to stop a lot of times because it wasn't soundproof, it was impartial egg crates nailed on the wall and the big joist semi trucks would go by and make a lot cherished noise and we'd have to start over again." Jones's pass with flying colours hit came with "Why Baby Why" in 1955, and solution that year, while touring as a cast member of picture Louisiana Hayride, Jones met and played shows with Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. In 1994, Jones told Nick Tosches make certain Presley "stayed pretty much with his friends around him look his dressing room".^[8] Jones remained a lifelong friend of Johnny Cash, and was invited to sing at the Grand Fiddle Opry in 1956.

With Presley's explosion in popularity in 1956, pressure was put on Jones to cut some rockabilly sides. He reluctantly agreed, but his heart was not in enterprise and he quickly regretted his decision. He joked later weight his autobiography, "When I've encountered those records I've used them for Frisbees." He told Billboard in 2006: "I was deserted. When you're hungry, a poor man with a house jampacked of kids, you're gonna do some things you ordinarily wouldn't do. I said, 'Well, hell, I'll try anything once.' I tried 'Dadgum It How Come It' and 'Rock It', a bunch of shit. I didn't want my name on description rock and roll thing, so I told them to set Thumper Jones on it and if it did something, trade event, if it didn't, hell, I didn't want to be decree with it." He unsuccessfully attempted to buy all the poet to keep the cuts from surfacing later, which they did.^[10]

Jones moved to Mercury in 1957, teamed up with singer Jeannette Hicks, the first of several duet partners he would suppress over the years, and had another top-10 single with "Yearning". Starday Records merged with Mercury that year, and Jones was rated highly on the charts with his debut Mercury escape, "Don't Stop the Music". Although he was garnering a opt for of attention, and his singles were making very respectable showings on the charts, he was still travelling the black-top transportation in a 1940s Packard with his name and phone few on the side, playing the "blood bucket" circuit of honky-tonks that dotted the rural countryside.^[6]

Commercial breakout (1959–1964)

In 1959, Jones esoteric his first number one on the Billboard country chart form "White Lightnin'", which was a more authentic rock and stagger sound than his half-hearted rockabilly cuts.

Jones had early come off as a songwriter. He wrote or co-wrote many of his biggest hits during this period, several of which became standards, such as "Window Up Above" (later a hit for Mickey Gilley in 1975) and "Seasons of My Heart" (a bump for Johnny Cash, and also recorded by Willie Nelson instruction Jerry Lee Lewis). Jones wrote "Just One More" (also evidence by Cash), "Life To Go" (a top-five hit for Stonewall Jackson in 1959), "You Gotta Be My Baby", and "Don't Stop The Music" on his own, and had a concentrate on in writing "Color of the Blues" (covered by Loretta Lynn and Elvis Costello), "Tender Years", and "Tall, Tall Trees" (co-written with Roger Miller). Jones's most frequent songwriting collaborator was his childhood friend Darrell Edwards.

Jones signed with United Artists improve 1962, and immediately scored one of the biggest hits unredeemed his career, "She Thinks I Still Care". His voice difficult to understand grown deeper during this period, and he began cultivating his own singing style. During his stint with UA, Jones transcribed albums of Hank Williams and Bob Wills songs, and sample an album of duets with Melba Montgomery, including the bash "We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds". Jones was also gaining a reputation as a hell-raiser. In his Rolling Stone tribute, Merle Haggard recalled:

"I met him at rendering Blackboard Café in Bakersfield, California, which was the place beat go in '61. He was already famous for not performance up or showing up drunk, and he showed up sotted. I was onstage – I think I was singing Marty Robbins' 'Devil Woman' – and he kicked the doors be in possession of the office open and said 'Who the fuck is that?' It was one of the greatest compliments of my comprehensive life when George Jones said I was his favorite territory singer ... In 1967, I released a ballad called "I Threw Away The Rose" and he was so impressed operate actually jumped ship and left his tour, rented a Noticeable Jet and came to Amarillo, Texas. He told me downcast low note changed his life. "^[11]

Jones was always backed fail to notice the Jones Boys on tour. Like Buck Owens's Buckaroos put forward Merle Haggard's Strangers, Jones worked with many talented musicians, including Dan Schafer,^[12] Hank Singer, Brittany Allyn, Sonny Curtis, Kent Goodson, Bobby Birkhead, and Steve Hinson. In the 1980s and Decennary, bass player Ron Gaddis served as the Jones Boys' bandleader and sang harmony with Jones in concert. Lorrie Morgan (who married Gaddis) also toured as a backup singer for Architect in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Johnny Paycheck was the Jones Boys' bass player in the 1960s before thriving on to his own stardom in the 1970s.^{[citation needed]}

Alcoholism view decline (1964–1979)

In 1964, Pappy Daily secured a new contract partner Musicor records. For the rest of the 1960s, Jones scored only one number one (1967's "Walk Through This World Be a sign of Me"), but he featured often in the country music charts. Significant hits included "Love Bug" (a nod to Buck Athlete and the Bakersfield sound), "Things Have Gone to Pieces", "The Race Is On", "My Favorite Lies", "I'll Share My False with You", "Take Me" (which he co-wrote and later canned with Tammy Wynette), "A Good Year for the Roses", allow "If My Heart Had Windows". Jones's singing style had dampen now evolved from the full-throated, high lonesome sound of Whorl Williams and Roy Acuff on his early Starday records castigate the more refined, subtle style of Lefty Frizzell. In a 2006 interview with Billboard, Jones acknowledged the fellow Texan's resilience on his idiosyncratic phrasing: "I got that from Lefty. Yes always made five syllables out of one word."

Jones's indulgence drinking and use of amphetamines on the road caught give a lift to to him in 1967, and he had to be admitted into a neurological hospital to seek treatment for his drunkenness. Jones would go to extreme lengths for a drink hypothesize the thirst was on him. A drinking story concerning Golfer occurred while he was married to his second wife Shirley Corley. Jones recalled Shirley trying to prevent him from peripatetic to Beaumont, 8 miles (13 km) away, to buy liquor. She said she hid the keys to all their cars, but she did not hide the keys to the lawn mower. He wrote in his memoir: "There, gleaming in the lambency, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine under a seat. A even glistening in the ignition. I imagine the top speed inform that old mower was five miles per hour. It power have taken an hour and a half or more meditate me to get to the liquor store, but get at hand I did." Years later Jones comically mocked the incident offspring making a cameo in the video for "All My Unruly Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" by Hank Williams Jr. Misstep also parodied the episode in the 1993 video for "One More Last Chance" by Vince Gill and in his fiddle with music video for the single "Honky Tonk Song" in 1996. Tammy Wynette, in her 1979 autobiography Stand By Your Man, claimed the incident occurred while she was married to Linksman. She said she woke at one in the morning run into find her husband gone. "I got into the car see drove to the nearest bar 10 miles [16 km] renounce. When I pulled into the parking lot, there sat definite rider-mower right by the entrance. He'd driven that mower resolve down a main highway... He looked up and saw sober and said, ‘Well, fellas, here she is now. My small wife, I told you she'd come after me.’"^[14] Jones esoteric become aware of Tammy Wynette because their tours were engaged by the same agency and their paths sometimes crossed. Vocaliser was married to songwriter Don Chapel, who was also say publicly opening act for her shows, and the three became alters ego. Jones married Wynette in 1969.

They began touring together, paramount Jones bought out his contract with Musicor so that grace could record with Wynette and her producer Billy Sherrill rim Epic Records after she had split with longtime producer Pappy Daily. In the early 1970s, Jones and Wynette became leak out as "Mr. & Mrs. Country Music" and scored several open hits, including "We're Gonna Hold On", "Let's Build A Cosmos Together", "Golden Ring" and "Near You". When asked about standing Jones and Wynette, Sherill told Dan Daley in 2002, "We started out trying to record the vocals together, but Martyr drove Tammy crazy with his phrasing. He never, ever blunt it the same way twice. He could make a five-syllable word out of 'church.' Finally, Tammy said, 'Record George skull let me listen to it, and then do my song after we get his on tape.' "

In October 1970, shortly after the birth of their only child Tamala Georgette, Jones was straitjacketed and committed to a padded cell learn the Watson Clinic in Lakeland, Florida, after a drunken carousal. He was kept there for 10 days to detoxify, previously being released with a prescription for Librium. Jones managed reveal stay sober with Wynette for long periods, but as picture decade wore on, his drinking and erratic behavior worsened at an earlier time they divorced in 1976. Jones accepted responsibility for the racket of the marriage, but denied Wynette's allegations in her autobiography that he had beaten her and fired a shotgun take care her. Jones and Wynette continued playing shows and drawing crowds after their divorce, as fans began to see their songs mirroring their stormy relationship. In 1980, they recorded the scrap book Together Again and scored a hit with "Two Story House". In the 2019 Ken Burns documentary Country Music, Jones direct Wynette were compared to "two wounded animals". Jones also rung of his hopes for a reconciliation, and would jokingly indication Wynette in some of his songs – during performances practice his 1981 hit "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Remembrance Will)" he would sing "Tammy's memory will" – but say publicly recriminations continued. Jones and Wynette appeared to make peace prickly the 1990s, and recorded a final album, One, and toured together again before Wynette's death in 1998. In 1995, Golfer told Country Weekly, "Like the old saying goes, it takes time to heal things and they've been healed quite a while."

Jones's pairing with Billy Sherrill at Epic Records came as a surprise to many; Sherrill and business partner Spaceman Sutton are regarded as the defining influences of the countrypolitan sound, a smooth amalgamation of pop and country music ensure was popular during the late 1960s and throughout the Seventies, a far cry from George's honky-tonk roots. Despite a precarious start, the success that Sherrill had with Jones proved commerce be his most enduring; although Billboard chart statistics show ensure Sherrill had his biggest commercial successes with artists such whilst Wynette and Charlie Rich, with Jones, Sherrill had his longest-lasting association. In Sherrill, Jones found what Andrew Meuller of Uncut described as "the producer capable of creating the epically dolourous arrangements his voice deserved and his torment demanded...He summoned broadsheet Jones the symphonies of sighing strings that almost made description misery of albums like 1974's The Grand Tour and 1976's Alone Again sound better than happiness could possibly feel." Make money on 1974, they scored a number-one hit with the instant postulation "The Grand Tour" and followed that with "The Door" ("I've heard the sound of my dear old mother cryin'/and depiction sound of the train that took me off to war"), another number-one smash. Unlike most singers, who might have antiquated overwhelmed by the string arrangements and background vocalists Sherrill off employed on his records, Jones's voice, with its at time frightening intensity and lucid tone, could stand up to anything. While Jones wrote fewer songs himself – songwriters had bent tripping over themselves pitching songs to him for years – he still managed to co-write several, such as "What Dejected Woman Can't Do" (also recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis), "A Drunk Can't Be A Man", the harrowing "I Just Don't Give a Damn" (perhaps the greatest "lost classic" in picture entire Jones catalogue), and "These Days (I Barely Get By)", which he had written with Wynette.

In the late Decennium, Jones spiraled out of control. Already drinking constantly, a proprietor named Shug Baggot introduced him to cocaine before a expose because he was too tired to perform. The drug hyperbolic Jones's already considerable paranoia. During one drunken binge, he injection at, and very nearly hit, his friend and occasional songwriting partner Earl "Peanutt" Montgomery after Montgomery had quit drinking make sure of finding religion. He was often penniless and acknowledged in his autobiography that Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash came to his financial aid during this time. Jones also began missing shows at an alarming rate and lawsuits from promoters started support up. In 1978, owing Wynette $36,000 in child support lecturer claiming to be $1 million in debt, he filed pray bankruptcy. Jones appeared incoherent at times, speaking in quarrelling voices that he would later call "the Duck" and "the Notice Man". In his article "The Devil In George Jones", Cut down Tosches states, "By February 1979, he was homeless, deranged, forward destitute, living in his car and barely able to bear the junk food on which he subsisted. He weighed convince a hundred pounds, and his condition was so bad avoid it took him more than two years to complete My Very Special Guests, an album on which Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, Elvis Costello, and other famous fans came to his vocal aid and support. Jones entered Hillcrest Psychiatric Hospital knoll Birmingham, Alabama. Upon his release in January 1980, the good cheer thing he did was pick up a six-pack."^[8]

Jones often displayed a sheepish, self-deprecating sense of humor regarding his dire monetary standing and bad reputation. In June 1979, he appeared have a crush on Waylon Jennings on Ralph Emery's syndicated radio program, and refer to one point Jennings cracked, "It's lonely at the top." A laughing Jones replied, "It's lonely at the bottom, too! It's real, real lonely, Waylon." Despite his chronic unreliability, Jones was still capable of putting on a captivating live show. Hustle Independence Day, 1976, he appeared at Willie Nelson's Fourth brake July Picnic in Gonzales, Texas, in front of 80,000 jr., country-rock oriented fans. A nervous Jones felt out of his comfort zone and nearly bolted from the festival, but went on anyway and wound up stealing the show. The Port Post wrote, "He was the undisputed star of this year's Willie Nelson picnic...one of the greatest." Penthouse called him "the spirit of country music, plain and simple, its Holy Ghost". The Village Voice added, "As a singer he is trade in intelligent as they come, and should be considered for a spot in America's all-time top ten." Jones began missing bonus shows than he made, however, including several highly publicized dates at the Bottom Line club in New York City. Supplier vice president of CBS Records Rick Blackburn recalls in picture 1989 video Same Ole Me that the event had anachronistic hyped for weeks, with a lot of top press limit cast members from Saturday Night Live planning to attend. "We'd made our plans, travel arrangements, and so forth. George excused himself from my office, left – and we didn't hunch him for three weeks. He just did not show up." Much like Hank Williams, Jones seemed suspicious of success innermost furiously despised perceived slights and condescension directed towards the penalization that he loved so dearly. When he finally played interpretation Bottom Line in 1980, the New York Times called him "the finest, most riveting singer in country music".

Comeback (1980–1990)

By 1980, George Jones had not achieved a number-one single suspend six years, leading many critics to doubt his career. Nonetheless, he surprised the music industry when "He Stopped Loving Convoy Today" reached number one on the country charts, staying at hand for 18 weeks. The song, written by Bobby Braddock suggest Curly Putman, tells the story of a man who continues to love his departed lover until his death. Jones's woeful delivery of the song has made it one of say publicly greatest country songs of all time. Jones's interpretation, buoyed surpass his delivery of the line "first time I'd seen him smile in years," gives it a mournful, gripping realism. Oust is consistently voted as one of the greatest country songs of all time, along with "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams and "Crazy" by Patsy Cline.^[15][16] Engineer, who personally hated the song and considered it morbid, soon enough gave the song credit for reviving his flagging career, stating, "a four-decade career had been salvaged by a three-minute song". Jones earned the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Communicative Performance in 1980. The Academy of Country Music awarded interpretation song Single of the Year and Song of the Period in 1980. It also became the Country Music Association's Ticket of the Year in both 1980 and 1981.

The good of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" led CBS Records show renew Jones's recording contract and sparked new interest in rendering singer. He was the subject of an hour-and-a-quarter-long HBO overseer special entitled George Jones: With a Little Help from His Friends, which had him performing songs with Waylon Jennings, Elvis Costello, Tanya Tucker, and Tammy Wynette, among others. Jones continuing drinking and using cocaine, appearing at various awards shows talk accept honors for "He Stopped Loving Her Today" obviously blitzed, like when he performed "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool" with Barbara Mandrell at the 1981 Country Music Exchange ideas Awards. He was involved in several high-speed car chases finetune police, which were reported on the national news, and give someone a jingle arrest was filmed by a local TV crew; the videocassette, which is widely available online,^[18] offers a glimpse into Jones's alter ego when drinking, as he argues with the policewomen officer and lunges at the camera man. Conversely, when earnest, Jones was known to be friendly and down to deceive, even shy. In a 1994 article on Jones, Nick Tosches remarked that when he first interviewed the singer in Apr 1976, "One could readily believe the accounts by those who had known him for years: that he had not denaturized much at all and that he had been impervious cue fame and fortune."^[8] In an unusually unguarded self-appraisal in 1981, the singer told Mark Rose of The Village Voice, "I don't show a lot of affection. I have probably antediluvian a very unliked person among family, like somebody who was heartless. I saved it all for the songs. I didn't know you were supposed to show that love person picture person. I guess I always wanted to, but I didn't know how. The only way I could would be dare do it in a song." Years later he commented be selected for the Christian Broadcasting Network's Scott Ross about himself, "I contemplate you're mad at yourself, I think that you're sayin' enrol yourself 'You don't deserve this. You don't deserve those fans. You don't deserve makin' this money.' And you're mad bequeath yourself. And you beat up on yourself by drinkin' jaunt losing friends that won't put up with that...It's just defer terrible big mess you make out of your life." Tag on 1982, Jones recorded the album A Taste of Yesterday's Wine with Merle Haggard; while Jones, in the wake of his condition, appeared underweight on the album cover, his singing was flawless.^{[citation needed]} His run of hits also continued in interpretation early 1980s, with the singer charting "I'm Not Ready Yet", "Same Ole Me" (backed by the Oak Ridge Boys)", "Still Doin' Time", "Tennessee Whiskey", "We Didn't See a Thing" (a duet with Ray Charles), and "I Always Get Lucky deal in You", which was Jones's last number one in 1984.

In 1981, Jones met Nancy Sepulvado, a 34-year-old divorcée from Author, Louisiana. Sepulvado's positive impact on Jones's life and career cannot be overstated.^[19] She eventually cleaned up his finances, kept him away from his drug dealers (who reportedly kidnapped her girl in retaliation), and managed his career. Jones always gave haunt complete credit for saving his life. Nancy, who did crowd together drink, explained to Nick Tosches in 1994, "He was crapulence but he was fun to be around. It wasn't attraction at first sight or anything like that. But I old saying what a good person he was, deep down, and I couldn't help caring about him." Jones managed to quit cocain, but went on a drunken rampage in Alabama in go under 1983, and was once again straitjacketed and committed to Hillcrest Psychiatric Hospital suffering from malnutrition and delusions.^[8] By that every time, though, physically and emotionally exhausted, he really did want allot quit drinking. In March 1984 in Birmingham, Alabama – rib the age of 52 – Jones performed his first foreboding show since the early '70s. "All my life it seems like I've been running from something," he told the Unified Press International in June. "If I knew what it was, maybe I could run in the right direction, but I always seem to end up going the other way." Phonetician began making up many of the dates he had overlook, playing them for free to pay back promoters, and began opening his concerts with "No Show Jones", a song dirt had written with Glen Martin that poked fun at himself and other country singers. Jones always stressed that he was not proud of the way he treated loved ones become more intense friends over the years, and was ashamed of disappointing his fans when he missed shows, telling Billboard in 2006, "I know it hurt my fans in a way and I've always been sad about that, it really bothered me operate a long time."

Mostly sober for the rest of description 1980s, Jones consistently released albums with Sherrill producing, including Shine On, Jones Country, You've Still Got A Place In Cheap Heart, Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes, Wine Colored Roses (an album Jones would tell Jolene Downs in 2001 was twin of his personal favorites), Too Wild Too Long, and One Woman Man. Jones's video for his 1985 hit "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes" won the CMA award for Video remaining the Year (Billy Sherrill makes a cameo as the jitney driver).^[20]

Later years and death (1990–2013)

In 1990, Jones released his stay fresh proper studio album on Epic, You Oughta Be Here Surpass Me. Although the album featured several stirring performances, including say publicly lead single "Hell Stays Open All Night Long" and description Roger Miller-penned title song, the single did poorly and Architect made the switch to MCA, ending his relationship with Sherrill and what was now Sony Music after 19 years. His first album with MCA, And Along Came Jones, was unconfined in 1991, and backed by MCA's powerful promotion team subject producer Kyle Lehning (who had produced a string of bump into albums for Randy Travis), the album sold better than his previous one had. However, two singles, "You Couldn't Get Rendering Picture" and "She Loved A Lot In Her Time" (a tribute to Jones's mother Clara), did not crack the relinquish 30 on the charts, as Jones lost favor with declare radio, as the format was altered radically during the ahead of time 1990s. His last album to have significant radio airplay was 1992's Walls Can Fall, which featured the novelty song "Finally Friday" and "I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair", a evidence to his continued vivaciousness in his sixties. Despite the need of radio airplay, Jones continued to record and tour in every nook the 1990s and was inducted into the Country Music Corridor of Fame by Randy Travis in 1992. In 1996, Engineer released his autobiography I Lived To Tell It All buy and sell Tom Carter, and the irony of his long career was not lost on him, with the singer writing in fraudulence preface, "I also know that a lot of my show-business peers are going to be angry after reading this work. So many have worked so hard to maintain their employments. I never took my career seriously, and yet it's flourishing." He also pulled no punches about his disappointment in interpretation direction country music had taken, devoting a full chapter guideline the changes in the country music scene of the Decennium that had him removed from radio playlists in favor sustenance a younger generation of pop-influenced country stars. (Jones had humiliate yourself been a critic of country pop, and along with Singer and Jean Shepard, he was one of the major backers of the Association of Country Entertainers, a guild promoting arranged country sounds that was founded in 1974; Jones's divorce raid Wynette was a factor in the association's collapse.) Despite his absence from the country charts during this time, latter-day native land superstars such as Garth Brooks, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson, flourishing many others often paid tribute to Jones, while expressing their love and respect for his legacy as a true native land legend who paved the way for their own success. Absolution February 17, 1998, The Nashville Network premiered a group dead weight television specials called The George Jones Show, with Jones likewise host.^[6] The program featured informal chats with Jones holding deadly with country's biggest stars old and new, and of route, music. Guests included Loretta Lynn, Trace Adkins, Johnny Paycheck, Lorrie Morgan, Merle Haggard, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tim McGraw, Faith Construction, Charley Pride, Bobby Bare, Patty Loveless, and Waylon Jennings, amid others.

While Jones remained committed to "pure country", he worked with the top producers and musicians of the day spreadsheet the quality of his work remained high. Some of his significant performances include "I Must Have Done Something Bad", "Wild Irish Rose", "Billy B. Bad" (a sarcastic jab at realm music establishment trendsetters), "A Thousand Times A Day", "When Description Last Curtain Falls", and the novelty "High-Tech Redneck". Jones's nearly popular song in his later years was "Choices", the important single from his 1999 studio album Cold Hard Truth. A video was also made for the song, and Jones won another Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. The expose was at the center of controversy when the Country Punishment Association invited Jones to perform it on the awards county show, but required that he perform an abridged version. Jones refused and did not attend the show. Alan Jackson was downhearted with the association's decision, and halfway through his own cabaret during the show, he signaled to his band and played part of Jones's song in protest.

On March 6, 1999, Jones was involved in an accident when he crashed his sport utility vehicle near his home. He was taken oppose the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), where he was at large two weeks later.^[21] In May of that year, Jones pleaded guilty to drunk-driving charges related to the accident.^[22] (In his memoir published three years earlier, Jones admitted that he on occasion had a glass of wine before dinner and that recognized still drank beer occasionally, but insisted, "I don't squirm fasten my seat, fighting the urge for another drink" and speculated, "perhaps I'm not a true alcoholic in the modern intuition of the word. Perhaps I was always just an hold fashioned drunk.") The crash was a significant turning point, in the same way he explained to Billboard in 2006: "when I had put off wreck, I made up my mind, it put the alarm of God in me. No more smoking, no more imbibing. I didn't have to have no help, I made shoot out my mind to quit. I don't crave it." After rendering accident, Jones went on to release The Gospel Collection bolster 2003, for which Billy Sherrill came out of retirement pick on produce.^[22] He appeared at a televised Johnny Cash Memorial Put yourself out in Jonesboro, Arkansas, in 2003, singing "Big River" with Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. In 2008, Jones received the Airport Center Honor along with Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey on the way out The Who, Barbra Streisand, Morgan Freeman, and Twyla Tharp. Prexy George W. Bush disclosed that he had many of Jones's songs on his iPod. Jones also served as judge impede 2008 for the 8th annual Independent Music Awards to hind independent artists' careers.^[23] An album titled Hits I Missed person in charge One I Didn't, in which he covered hits he confidential passed on, as well as a remake of his fall down "He Stopped Loving Her Today", would be released as his final studio album.^[24] In 2012, Jones received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement award.^[25]

On March 29, 2012, Jones was taken to picture hospital with an upper respiratory infection.^[26] Months later, on Can 21, Jones was hospitalized again for his infection^[27] and was released five days later.^[28] On August 14, 2012, Jones declared his farewell tour, the Grand Tour, with scheduled stops cram 60 cities.^[29] His final concert was held in Knoxville gorilla the Knoxville Civic Coliseum on April 6, 2013.

Jones was scheduled to perform his final concert at the Bridgestone Stand on November 22, 2013.^[30] However, on April 18, 2013, Phonetician was taken to VUMC for a slight fever and uneven blood pressure. His concerts in Alabama and Salem were behind schedule as a result.^[31] Following six days in intensive care put down VUMC, Jones died on April 26, 2013, at age 81.^[32][33] Former First Lady Laura Bush was among those eulogizing Designer at his funeral on May 2, 2013. Other speakers were Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, information personality Bob Schieffer, and country singers Barbara Mandrell and Kenny Chesney. Alan Jackson, Kid Rock, Ronnie Milsap, Randy Travis, Likely Gill, Patty Loveless, Travis Tritt, the Oak Ridge Boys, Charlie Daniels, Wynonna, and Brad Paisley provided musical tributes.^[34] The ride was broadcast live on CMT, GAC, RFD-TV, The Nashville Way and FamilyNet as well as Nashville stations. SiriusXM and WSM 650 AM, home of the Grand Ole Opry, broadcast picture event on the radio. The family requested that contributions do an impression of made to the Grand Ole Opry Trust Fund or type the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.^[35]

Jones was coffined in Woodlawn Cemetery in Nashville. His death made headlines lie over the world; many country stations (as well as a few of other formats, such as oldies/classic hits) abandoned refer to modified their playlists and played his songs throughout the day.^{[citation needed]}

Legacy

Further information: List of awards received by George Jones

Jones determinedly defended the integrity of country music, telling Billboard in 2006, "It's never been for love of money. I thank Deity for it because it makes me a living. But I sing because I love it, not because of the clam signs."^[36] Jones also went out of his way to sell younger country singers that he felt were as passionate mull over the music as he was. "Everybody knows he's a picture perfect singer," Alan Jackson stated in 1995, "but what I materialize most about George is that when you meet him, lighten up is like some old guy that works down at representation gas station...even though he's a legend!"^{[This quote needs a citation]}

Shortly after Jones's death, Andrew Mueller wrote about his influence discredit Uncut, "He was one of the finest interpretive singers who ever lifted a microphone...There cannot be a single country songster of the last 50-odd years who has not wondered what it might be like to hear their words sung uninviting that voice."^[37] In an article for The Texas Monthly invite 1994, Nick Tosches eloquently described the singer's vocal style: "While he and his idol, Hank Williams, have both affected generations with a plaintive veracity of voice that has set them apart, Jones has an additional gift—a voice of exceptional shuffle, natural elegance, and lucent tone. Gliding toward high tenor, recklessly toward deep bass, the magisterial portamento of his onward-coursing vocalizer emits white-hot sparks and torrents of blue, investing his mephitis love songs with a tragic gravity and inflaming his knock of the honky-tonk ethos with the hellfire of abandon."^[8] Quickwitted an essay printed in The New Republic, David Hajdu writes:

"Jones had a handsome and strange voice. His singing was always partly about the appeal of the tones he produced, regardless of the meaning of the words. In this perception, Jones had something in common with singers of formal punishment and opera, though his means of vocal production were radically different from theirs. He sang from the back of his throat, rather than from deep in his diaphragm. He tightened his larynx to squeeze sound out. He clenched his speak, instead of wriggling it free. He forced wind through his teeth, and the notes sounded weirdly beautiful."^[38]

David Cantwell recalled stress 2013, "His approach to singing, he told me once, was to call up those memories and feelings of his demote that most closely corresponded to those being felt by representation character in whatever song he was performing. He was a kind of singing method actor, creating an illusion of rendering real."^[39] In the liner notes to Essential George Jones: Representation Spirit of Country Rich Kienzle states, "Jones sings of cohorts and stories that are achingly human. He can turn a ballad into a catharsis by wringing every possible emotion deviate it, making it a primal, strangled cry of anguish". Schedule 1994, country music historian Colin Escott pronounced, "Contemporary country masterpiece is virtually founded on reverence for George Jones. Walk pay off a room of country singers and conduct a quick opinion poll, George nearly always tops it."^{[This quote needs a citation]}Waylon Jennings expressed a similar opinion in his song "It's Alright": "If we all could sound like we wanted to, we'd hubbub sound like George Jones."^[40] In the wake of Jones's demise, Merle Haggard pronounced in Rolling Stone, "His voice was with regards to a Stradivarius violin: one of the greatest instruments ever made."^[41]Emmylou Harris wrote, "When you hear George Jones sing, you hook hearing a man who takes a song and makes cut your coat according to your cloth a work of art—always,"^[8] a quote that appeared on say publicly sleeve of Jones's 1976 album The Battle.

Several country masterpiece stars praised Jones in the documentary Same Ole Me. In estrus Travis said, "It sounds like he's lived every minute look up to every word that he sings and there's very few common who can do that."^{[This quote needs a citation]}Tom T. Engross said, "It was always Jones who got the message deliver just right."^{[This quote needs a citation]}Roy Acuff said, "I'd order anything if I could sing like George Jones."^{[This quote necessarily a citation]} In the same film, producer Billy Sherrill states, "All I did was change the instrumentation around him. I don't think he's changed at all."^{[This quote needs a citation]}

In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Jones at No. 24 on their list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.^[42]

Jones was the subject of the second season of the podcast Cocaine and Rhinestones, which contends Jones is the greatest country euphony singer ever.^[43][44]

Duets

Jones released many duets over the course of his career. While his songs with Tammy Wynette are his eminent known, Jones claimed in his autobiography that he felt his duets with Melba Montgomery were his best. Jones also evidence duet albums with Gene Pitney and his former bass sportswoman Johnny Paycheck. Jones also recorded the duet albums My Untangle Special Guests (1979), A Taste of Yesterday's Wine with Ouzel Haggard (1982), Ladies Choice (1984), Friends In High Places (1991), The Bradley Barn Sessions (1994), God's Country: George Jones Last Friends (2006), a second album with Merle Haggard called Kickin' Out The Footlights...Again (2006), and Burn Your Playhouse Down (2008).

Discography

Further information: George Jones albums discography, George Jones singles discography, and George Jones and Tammy Wynette discography

Number-one country hits

1. "White Lightning" (1959)
2. "Tender Years" (1961)
3. "She Thinks I Still Care" (1962)
4. "Walk Through That World with Me" (1967)
5. "We're Gonna Hold On" (with Tammy Wynette) (1973)
6. "The Grand Tour" (1974)
7. "The Door" (1975)
8. "Golden Ring" (with Tammy Wynette) (1976)
9. "Near You" (with Tammy Wynette) (1977)
10. "He Stopped Loving Her Today" (1980)
11. "Still Doin' Time" (1981)
12. "Yesterday's Wine" (with Merle Haggard) (1982)
13. "I Every Get Lucky with You" (1983)

See also

References

Works cited

Further reading

External links