George Jones (click on link to George’s biography in the Country Music Hall of Fame)
Anyone who has read my blog for awhile knows that George Jones is my favorite country singer. There is something about not only the range of his voice but the genuine passion with which he sings that has nobody else coming even close to the title on my list. In this post my focus is on George’s early years. I’ve also included his solo discography and his discography with his best known singing partner, Tammy Wynette.
George Glenn Jones (b. 9/12/31 – d. 4/26/13) was an American country musician, singer, and songwriter. He achieved international fame for a long list of hit records, and is well known for his distinctive voice and phrasing. For the last two decades of his life, Jones was frequently referred to as “the greatest living country singer”, “The Rolls-Royce of Country Music”, and had more than 160 chart singles to his name from 1955 until his death in 2013.
His earliest musical influences were Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe, although the artistry of Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell helped to crystallize his vocal style. He served in the United 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, earning him the nickname “No Show Jones”. Jones died in 2013, aged 81, from hypoxic respiratory failure.
George was born in Saratoga, Texas, and was raised with a brother and five sisters in Colmesneil, Texas, in the Big Thicket region of 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. When Jones was born, one of the doctors dropped him and broke his arm.
He heard country music for the first 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 listening to the Grand Ole Opry, and would insist that his mother wake him if he fell asleep so that he could hear Roy Acuff or Bill Monroe.
In his autobiography I Lived To Tell It All, Jones recalled that the early death of his sister Ethel worsened his father’s drinking problem, which caused him to be physically and emotionally abusive to his wife and children. In his biography George Jones: The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Legend, Bob Allen recounts how George Washington Jones would return home drunk in the middle of the night with his cronies, wake up his terrified son and demand that he sing for them or face a beating. In a CMT episode of Inside Fame dedicated to Jones’s life, country music historian Robert K. Oermann said, “You would think that it would make him not a singer, because it was so abusively thrust on him. But the opposite happened; he became … someone 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 … Daddy was an unusual drinker. He drank to excess, but never while working, and he probably was the hardest working man I’ve ever known.” His father bought him his first guitar at age nine and he learned his first chords and songs at church. Several photographs show a young George busking on the streets of Beaumont.
Solo Albums:
|
Studio albums |
80 |
|---|---|
|
Live albums |
3 |
|
Compilation albums |
132 |
|
Video albums |
10 |
|
Solo studio albums |
69 |
|
Collaborative studio albums |
11 |
|
Box sets |
7 |
Solo Singles:
|
Music videos |
21 |
|---|---|
|
Singles |
182 |
|
As a solo artist |
136 |
|
As a collaborative artist |
31 |
|
As a featured artist |
8 |
|
Promotional singles |
7 |
|
Other charted songs |
14 |
George Jones & Tammy Wynette discography:
|
Studio albums |
9 |
|---|---|
|
Compilation albums |
14 |
|
Music videos |
1 |
|
Singles |
15 |
Source: wikipedia
Glyn Wilton is the host of Mixed Music Bag. Glyn says:
The theme is still to find a group/solo artist beginning with G or H
Tao Talk 
You gotta love George, if his music don’t make you cry, nothing will. I liked him, even before his Tammy days. Pure cry in your beer. I believe he, like Dylan may have been the original Tortured Poets.
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Both sing of the human condition in all of its guts and glory. Good comparison, Phil.
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He’s the only singer that has made my grandson cry in his car seat. Com’on George.
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A legend. Thanks, Lisa.
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Indeed!
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I never got to see George Jones, but I did see Tammy Wynette when she was out of fashion. She played the high school gym in a nearby small town. It was sad to see she had fallen so far so fast, but a treasure to get to see her in that setting.
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The whims of popularity are fickle. So are the foibles of human nature. “Tortured artists” are often the brightest talents in their chosen field. Glad you got a chance to see her, Steve.
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Nice selection of George songs and some history to put his life struggle into perspective. Dave Edmunds does a pretty decent cover of The Race is On.
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There’s another song he does in a documentary I saw a few years back that tears me apart. Didn’t have time to look for it last night. The Race is On is a great song!
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OK I found it. “A Poem is a Naked Person,” is a 1974 documentary about Leon Russell touring. George sings a song in it:
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Awesome thanks !
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I agree, an amazing vocal range.
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About George, he really lived the situations in his songs. Hopeless drunk or tortured genius? Maybe a little of both…
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One of the biggest names in Country and Western
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I saw and heard a lot of George when I was younger. A legend in the music industry who left behind a bunch of timeless treasures, Lisa.
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He was at the top of the charts a lot in his day. So happy you saw him. I would have loved to see him live in a little supper club. Yes, he did. Would love to get his complete discography (with and without Tammy and his other singing partners.)
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Their voices blend so well. So expressive. He still sounds fresh and new. (K)
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Yes, he does, K. He is beyond his abusers and his demons now.
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He is a legend! No doubt about that. I didn’t know that about his family life…that is terrible and explains some of his later troubles. His voice was golden no doubt.
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Max, I believe he was trying to sing his pain away, and in the process shared his pain with the world :(
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Well if that was it he did it. I know he had a lot of demons…
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One of country’s truly greatest singers! Thanks for this concise profile of his life and career.
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Wiki is my faithful servant :) I just don’t want George to be forgotten. I see him as being as important to American music as the classical composers were to their respective countries.
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He truly is an important figure in your country’s musical history.
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He is so damn likeable even without the voice. One of my close buddies was a spittin image of George.
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Yes, Possum is. He is hands-down #1 country singer for me. Nobody else comes close. Could your buddy sing like him?
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Just looked like him and was a character.
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