A reader writes:
It’s been a long time since I attended a country concert, but when I was growing up in South Carolina, it was standard practice on all country radio and TV shows to sign off with a gospel number. It was just expected. There was a ton of hypocrisy; I know for a fact that a popular local gospel quartet kept its tour bus well stocked with Jack Daniels. This isn’t to put down George Jones; he really was the greatest, and the loss of that voice is a loss indeed. It’s just to point out that there’s a lot of ritual to the Saturday Night/Sunday Morning pattern of country music.
From Ian Crouch’s recent tribute to the country legend:
Jones’s songs lifted country-music aphorisms to a kind of high art, and his life and now death seem to demand aphorism as well, something blunt and simple like: George Jones was an imperfect man with a perfect voice. …
The stories of Jones’s drunken antics are legion, and while their hard-living, hard-loving particulars might inspire a bit of awe (and gave him cred with rock and punk artists), just ask the women in his life what it was like to live with him. Yet, even in some of his lowest personal moments, Jones created great, signature music. He recorded “Bartender’s Blues,” written by James Taylor, in 1978. His rendering of the chorus, with its “four walls around me to hold my life,” may be the best expression of his incredible vocal gifts—despair and joy fighting out their eternal battle.
The recording sessions for “He Stopped Loving Her Today” took a long time, and were contentious. Jones was capricious and unreliable—other words for saying that he was a drunk. He never liked his nicknames. “Possum” disparaged his middling looks. “No Show Jones” impugned his reliability and professionalism. Both were unkind, and both were deserved. He idolized Hank Williams, and it seemed like he was bound to follow him to an early grave. Yet “He Stopped Loving Her Today” was a hit, and three years later, at rock bottom, Jones quit the drinking and drugs, and lived on for three more decades, making music, recording too many albums, lending his golden voice to innumerable duets. He was Nashville royalty, name-checked by every young country singer with any sense.
He’d been married to his fourth wife, Nancy, for those thirty years. In the end, he wasn’t the lonely, regretful man in his most famous song.
“She’s My Rock”, seen above, was released shortly after marrying Nancy. “He Stopped Loving Her Today” can be heard here.
The Dish 