The
Grand Tour: The Life and Music of George Jones
by Rich Kienzle (Harper/Collin/Dey Street Books, March 2016, 288 Pages,
$18.77/14.99) provides an excellent overview of the life and times
of George Jones, called, by the New York Times, the “definitive country singer of last half century” and known
for years in the industry as “no show Jones” for his propensity
to be unable to make it to the stage because of his serious problems
with drugs and alcohol. It may also echo the life and times of the
country music industry during the decades from the sixties through
the eighties, when many, according to an interview we heard recently,
the industry floated on an epidemic of drugs and alcohol. While I
didn't find much of Jones' life or personality to be much endearing,
many of his fans will excuse his behavior for the greatness of his
mammoth catalog of hit songs which persist, being frequently covered
by country music singers everywhere. I found the book and the man to
be both sad and distressing.
George
Glenn Jones was born in 1931 during the depths of the depression in
the Big Thicket region of east Texas, a heavily wooded region lying
along the southeastern edge of Texas bordering on Louisiana. This is
a region where, when the turpentine and logging industry wasn't doing
well, the moonshine business thrived. Jones' father, a violent
alcoholic himself, was prone to responding to upsets in the world by
beating his wife and children, which, according to Kienzle, lay at the
base of Jones's own lifelong difficulties with drugs and alcohol.
Music, however, was always a feature in his life, as his father
played guitar and harmonica, while his mother was a church pianist in
a Pentacostal church, leading Jones' toward his base in both country
and gospel music which dominated his life.
Perhaps
the most interesting element of this book, for me, lay in the
insights into the recording industry, when that industry was ruled by
large commercial labels, as it emerged during the fifties and
sixties, from small, regional outlets recording in primitive studios
music aimed at narrowly focused regional audiences, in Jones' case,
of white, working class fans who heard him playing largely in
honky-tonks and bars. As his success as a performer grew, he moved to
Nashville, where the country music recording industry was centered,
working for larger and more prestigious labels. He decried what he
saw as the breakdown of traditional country music into an “urban
cowboy smooth style represented by the rise of singers like Kenny
Rogers and Garth Brooks, including even Dolly Parton, as she became a
movie star in the eighties. As in bluegrass, the move from its rough,
rural origins to suburban comfort in the U.S. Demographic profiles
created fissures in the business which disturbed and angered Jones.
Kienzle, prone to comments like “scared the shit out of him,”
substitutes coarse language for serious analysis at times. Jones' work
became the “gold standard” for a movement during the eighties
which Kienzle refers to as New Traditionalism, represented by Dwight
Yoakum, Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, and Patty Loveless.
Meanwhile,
Jones' personal life can only be described as a mess. He was married
several times to women whose influence on him was negligible. His
marriage and professional association to/with Tammy Wynette created
great music, but never contributed to his achieving a more adult
lifestyle. He bought and sold large tracts of land with the idea of
developing music parks, which never quite panned out. Jones was prone
to buying and either giving away or wrecking cars and yachts, never
learning to live in a responsible way or manage money. He was
frequently sued and usually lost. His last wife, Nancy Sepulvado,
seems to have helped him, with the help of several admittances to
rehabilitation institutes and hospitalizations, to forego drugs and
learn better to manage his drinking. Often plagued with ill health,
Jones still managed to live into his 81st
year, dying in 2013. He is remembered and celebrated as one of the
all-time greats of country music history. Songs like He
Stopped Loving Her Today and The
Grand Tour have become staples
of country music and bluegrass.
Veteran country music critic,
journalist, and historian Rich Kienzle is the author of Southwest
Shuffle: Pioneers of Honky-Tonk, Western Swing, and
Country Jazz and Great Guitarists: The Most Influential Players in
Blues, Country Music, Jazz and Rock. A contributing editor
and columnist at Country Music magazine for nearly
twenty-five years, he also edited their history publication The
Journal. He was formerly a contributing editor at No
Depression and Guitar World and is now a regular
contributor to Vintage Guitar Magazine. His work has appeared
in Fretboard Journal, Guitar Player, Request,
The Journal of Country Music, and the Austin
American-Statesman. The author of liner notes for almost four
hundred reissue albums, Kienzle is among the few country journalists
profiled in The Grove Dictionary of American Music. He
received the International Country Music Conference’s Charlie Lamb
Award for Excellence in Country Music Journalism in 2012. (from
Harper Collins author biography)
The
Grand Tour: The Life and Music of George Jones
by Rich Kienzle (Dey Street Books division of Harper/Collins, March
2016, 288 Pages, $18.77/14.99) is a reasonably thorough account of
George Jones' life which makes no effort to paper over his personal
demons and deep flaws. Who can tell whether those flaws contributed
to the depth and emotional impact of his singing or fatally damaged
his output and his life. Certainly, his record as a husband and
father were evident to everyone who knew anything about him.
Nevertheless, George Jones' reputation as an icon in country music
only continues to grow. I read the book as an electronic galley
provided to me by the publisher through Edelweiss. I read it on my
Kindle app.
