Saturday, April 27, 2013

Slow Saturday Special: Country Song Cut Short

I know a little about country music, but not much. I'm Rocker.

Picked out a love story for you.

"George Jones; superstar defined country music" by Jon Pareles  |  New York Times, April 27, 2013

NEW YORK — George Jones, the definitive country singer of the last half-century, died Friday at a hospital in Nashville. He was 81....

Mr. Jones, who was nicknamed Possum for his close-set eyes and pointed nose, and later was known as No-Show Jones for the concerts he missed during drinking and drug binges, was a legendary figure in country music....

He met a rising country singer, Tammy Wynette, in 1966, and they fell in love while on tour together. She was married at the time to songwriter Don Chapel. One night in 1968, Mr. Jones recalled, Wynette and Chapel were arguing in their dining room when Mr. Jones arrived; he upended the dining room table and told Wynette he loved her. She took her three children and left with Mr. Jones.

They were married in 1969 and settled in Lakeland, Fla. There, on the land around his plantation-style mansion, Mr. Jones built another country-themed park, the Old Plantation Music Park.

The couple began recording duets, but the marriage was falling apart, unable to withstand bitter quarrels and Mr. Jones’s drinking and amphetamine use....

The couple were divorced in 1975....

In 1979 Mr. Jones declared bankruptcy and signed away his royalties from past and present recordings to repay his creditors. That December, Mr. Jones was committed for 30 days to a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. But he went back to cocaine and whiskey when he was released.

Yet he still had hits....

He rejoined Wynette to record an album, ‘‘One,’’ and to tour in 1994 and 1995....

In 1998, Wynette died in her sleep at the age of 55....

In his last years, Mr. Jones found himself upholding a traditional sound that had largely disappeared from commercial radio....

I will let him have the last word:

“They don’t care about you as a person.’’

--more--"

My favorite country act? 

Dixie Chicks, for the obvious reasons. Such good girls!

(That brought tears, not anger. If anything was ever black and white!)  

Ah, why not give you an encore

Sing it loud and sing it long, ladies!