Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 16, 1995 TAG: 9502170005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: EXTRA EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID HERNDON/NEWSDAY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Still, a 40-year career that has yielded 150-some albums is an imposing artistic monument that can't be ignored or denied, as two new retrospectives amply demonstrate. Add to those a newly recorded album of duets and a republished biography, and the Possum suddenly seems more accessible than ever.
He plays the Salem Civic Center on Friday night at 7:30.
For roughly 35 years, Jones has been the country singer's country singer, the successor to Hank Williams' hillbilly throne. He became a member of the Grand Ol' Opry in 1956 and had his first No. 1 hit in 1959 (``White Lightning'').
He's copped all the awards Nashville has to offer several times over and Grammys, too. He's been compared to Al Green and Frank Sinatra, who called him "the second-best male singer in America.''
When Elvis Costello made his country move on "Almost Blue,'' Jones was his primary inspiration; he serves the same role for many of Nashville's current neo-traditionalists.
Along the way, Jones earned a reputation as a cross-addicted hellhound redneck bent on self-destruction; he missed so many performances over the years (54 in 1979 alone) that he gained the nickname "No Show Jones.''
He finally bottomed out in the early '80s, carrying on conversations with invisible characters called "the Duck'' and "the Old Man,'' weighing in at 105. But the 63-year-old Jones recovered from alcoholism 10 years ago, and while it might be surprising that he's even alive - he's currently on the mend from bypass surgery - his singing remains truly miraculous.
Over the course of his career, the quality of his output has varied, but his distinctive voice has never deserted him, and now it's richer than ever.
If Jones were a better shot while under the influence, ex-wife Tammy Wynette probably would be dead, and he'd be doing life. Instead, they reunited earlier this year to re-record their 1976 hit "Golden Ring,'' which follows a wedding band from the pawnshop to the chapel to the apartment and back to the pawnshop, all in the space of three gloriously painful verses.
"Golden Ring'' is one of the centerpieces of Jones' new album, "The Bradley Barn Sessions'' (MCA), a collection of duets with stars like Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Travis Tritt and Trisha Yearwood along with a guest shot by Keith Richards on songs they chose from Jones' extensive back catalog.
A nearly complete artistic success - the song selection could have been more finely tuned, but the playing, production and singing are all sublime - "The Bradley Barn Sessions'' serves as both tribute to, and showcase for, Jones.
For the uninitiated, it's also a perfect point of entry to the world of song represented more thoroughly by the pair of excellent retrospectives being released concurrently on different labels.
"Cup of Loneliness: The Classic Mercury Years'' (Mercury) and "The Essential George Jones: The Spirit of Country'' (Epic/Legacy) give Jones his due with top-notch sound, liner notes and classy packaging.
Together, the four discs recapitulate Jones' career in 88 songs, but as Bob Irwin, who produced "The Spirit of Country,'' notes, Jones' catalog is so vast and rich, "It would have been easy to do five discs'' for his set alone. Last month also saw the reissue of a serviceable biography, "George Jones: The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Legend,'' by Bob Allen (Birch Lane Press).
Jones came out of the rough-and-tumble East Texas honky-tonk circuit; in charting this territory, the 51-song Mercury collection (which runs from the 1954 start of his recording career through 1961) takes a trip to another time and place.
This is hard country simple fiddle and pedal steel sound, backwoods sentiments and perhaps too deep a dip in that pond for all but purists. Jones' influences are plain to hear on these early recordings. There was church music, of course, and Roy Acuff and Hank Williams. Jones credits Lefty Frizzell's phrasing, in particular, for teaching him how to make one syllable into five.
With all that stretching and bending and slurring going on, a word is no longer a word, notes are no longer notes. As his technique developed, Jones became able to summon naturalistic sounds of pure emotion that could come from Eastern scales; he can pack a lifetime of heartbreak into a ``whoa.'' Jones could always whoop it up as he did on ``Why Baby Why'' and ``White Lightning'' (included on all three collections) but he made his most distinctive mark as a balladeer.
By 1961, when his Mercury stint ended, he had recorded such early cornerstones of his classic style as ``The Window Up Above'' and ``Tender Years.'' ``The Essential George Jones'' (1954-1988) reiterates only seven of those early songs, and picks up the story with ``She Thinks I Still Care,'' a 1961 country-chart-topper.
A perfectly balanced career overview in 41 songs, it has all the hits, and nothing but the hits: ``The Grand Tour,'' ``He Stopped Loving Her Today,'' ``If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will),'' ``Tennessee Whiskey.''
To the eternal chagrin of honky-tonk purists, producer Billy Sherrill who worked with Jones for two decades was unstinting in the use of string sections and choirs to create his countrypolitan Nashville sound. But no amount of schmaltz could take the twang out of Jones' singing; at its most effective, the formula exploited the contrast for truly dramatic effect and was central to much of Jones' most popular work, including the serial of duets with Tammy that biographer Bob Allen calls ``a country music passion play.''
The makeups and breakups of their wild and woolly marriage were reflected in songs with titles like ``We Can Make It'' and ``The Ceremony,'' in which they actually sang wedding vows. Given Jones' pre-eminence as a balladeer, ``The Bradley Barn Sessions'' seems rather heavily weighted toward overly familiar giddy-up songs: ``Love Bug,'' ``The Race Is On,'' ``White Lightning,'' ``Why Baby Why.''
Nevertheless, it's consistently enchanting to hear Jones freed up to sing so much harmony. Particular highlights include the exceptionally beautiful ``A Good Year for the Roses'' with Alan Jackson - it'd be hard to go wrong with a song like that, and they don't - and ``Where Grass Won't Grow,'' featuring Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Trisha Yearwood. Keith Richards' attempt to mimic Jones' phrasing on the weeper ``Say It's Not You'' comes off ragged but right.
To hear Jones sing these duets is to hear the voice of experience; he shows the utmost respect for the company, the songs and, most importantly, himself. This might be the first time we've ever heard him sing some of these chestnuts cold sober.
If anyone's ever really been to hell and back, it's George Jones; how fortunate we are he's still around to share his saving grace.
George Jones: Friday, 7:30 p.m., Salem Civic Center. With Aaron Tippin and Martinsville native Clinton Gregory. Tickets, $21.50, at box office (375-3004), TicketMaster outlets, or charge-by-phone (343-8100).
by CNB