OPO: George Jones

I hate to be predictable, but "You're Still On My Mind" or "The Door."

"The Grand Tour"

I'm going to go with the obvious too: "He Stopped Loving Her Today." Almost went with "White Lighting," "Who Shot Sam," or "The King Is Gone (So Are You)" or whatever fact checkin' cuz decided that last one was supposed to be called.

that's what it's called. i'd pick 'color of the blues'.

"The Race Is On"

whatever fact checkin' cuz decided that last one was supposed to be called

original title, and the ONLY title in my heart: "ya ba da ba do (so are you)." that's what it used to say on my cd copy of one woman man and dammit that's what it still says.

it became "the king is gone (so are you)" on paper (and on cd and on box and on the interwebs) after the lawyers got their paws around george's neck. but the lawyers and the paper and the cd and the box and the interwebs are wrong dammit.

oh yeah, and if i've got to pick one, it's probably "she still thinks i still care." but there's a couple dozen others i might pick on any other day.

that's one too many stills, oops. (call the g-men and the t-men!)

"she thinks i still care."

Yabba Dabba Doo is great. I also really like "Things Have Gone to Pieces". Any of the self pitying I'm drunk and she's left me songs has something to recommend it.

also: "If Drinkin' Won't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)."

Since I started this, I've found "Leaving Love All Over the Place" which is just as fun as the title suggests.

"Her Name Is"

Maybe not my absolute fave, but a recent discovery: " Hell Stays Open (All Night Long)"

"If Drinking Don't Kill Me" is my old favourite, but the way he sings that opening line in "The Race Is On" is incredible.

And if you can handle late-period novelty song George, and I can, then you might like "The King Is Gone (And So Are You)". Nice image of him sitting at "the one little table you left us" talking to Elvis and Fred Flintstone-shaped drinking vessels.

Choices

Early Jones song I'm currently in love with:

Put the bottle on the table
Let it stay there till I'm not able
To see your face in ev'ry place that I go
I've been sitting here so long
Just remembering that you are gone
Well, one more drink of wine
Then if you're still on my mind
One drink, just one more and then another

"Mr. Fool"

The Window Up Above

Bartender's Blues

I can light up your smokes
I can laugh at your jokes
I can watch you fall down on your knees
I can close down this bar
I can gas up my car
And I can pack up and mail in my keys

Yeah, Window Up Above rules hard too. Too many for OPO.

One more, You Comb Her Hair. Are the lyrics to this little vague, or am I just dense?

I know that you wonder who I dream about
And if I met someone who thrills me so
Well, I've finally met a girl who turns me inside out
I'll tell you about her for you ought to know.

You comb her hair every mornin'
And make sure she's dressed just right
You comb her hair every mornin'
And put her to bed everynight.

When she's around me sometimes I can hardly speak
I stammer and I walk right into doors
And just to hold her hand in mine makes me feel weak
Oh, you know her heart is a friend of yours.

the way he sings that opening line in "The Race Is On" is incredible.

OTMFM

acapella break at 1:21 is everything right and good about music

I'm a sucker for that trick in any kind music -- you know, "Let's all stop and start at the same time to show everybody how tight we are." Works every time. I like it in "The One I Loved Back Then," too, where George also shows off that crazy low end of his range.

I'll second or third "Ya Ba Da Ba Do" a.k.a. "The King Is Dead (And So Are You"). two other sorta obscure ones I like are "The Visit," off of High-Tech Redneck and "I'll Give You Something to Drink About," from maybe the '90s.

And you lost all courage then lost all you vim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIEwgkcVWLk

"choices" or "i've aged 20 years in 5"

george & tammy tv series w/jessica chastain & michael shannon

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5545398/

"He Stopped Loving Her Today," which is a strong contender, not only for best George Jones song, but for best country song by anyone ever.

Awesome expanded live alb, 2018 reissue---my blogged comments x booklet notes:

George Jones/Jones Boys: Live in TX '65: Brave ballads of
self-torture x "C Jam Blues," "White Lightnin'," "Bony Maronie,"
"B Bowman Bop." Panhandle Rag," "Jole Blon,"
JB trusty/Bladerunner
crooner also cool w girl part on
"We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds," heavy guests too.
Guests incl. steel guitarist Buddy Emmons and fiddlers Red Hayes
and (on "Jole Blond") Rufus Thibodeaux ("Two-By-Four,"
George calls him). The JBs crooner is Don Adams
---android-sounding, strangely(?) satisfying.
Ace notes:
Not many icons of 1950s and 1960s country music ever made a live album during country’s golden age. One of the select few who tried was George Jones, whose producer H.W. “Pappy” Daily hired mobile equipment and taped George and the Jones Boys at Houston’s famous honky-tonk Dancetown USA sometime in early 1965. Although he claimed to have a cold, George was in fine form that night, but significant audio problems that could not have been easily fixed in the 60s caused Daily to shelve the tapes and abandon the notion of releasing any kind of live set on his most eminent discovery.

In the 1980s Ace was offered the opportunity to do something with the tapes and leapt at the chance of putting out a selection of
the recordings as a vinyl album tiled “Live At Dancetown USA”. Around a
decade later, we issued the full show as a CD to great acclaim.Our
previous issues of this material on vinyl and CD were taken from
original 2-track mono tapes and mastered that way. This newly remastered
release, re-titled “Live In Texas 1965”, presents the recordings in
glorious mono, as it would have been issued in 1965. A mono mix gives
the listener a more satisfying audio experience. It also reduces the
extraneous hiss and sundry
noise that was considerably more exposed on the raw 2-track tapes. This
new master presents the precious archive material in the best possible
sound, without compromising in any way the integrity of the performances
of George and the Jones Boys as they sounded in a Texas dancehall in
early 1965.
The once-brief booklet has been expanded, with a lengthy new note and some era-appropriate photographs that were not available to us previously, and the instrumental tracks have been correctly titled. All these changes are for the better, we hope you’ll agree.

Few live sets have ever put the listener front-and-centre in the way this one does. You can hear all kinds of shouts from the audience for specific songs, as well as George’s responses. Announcements over the club’s tannoy frequently match or override George’s stage announcements. The atmosphere generated on the tapes is so vivid that you can almost taste the beer and smell the smoke from a thousand cigarettes. There’s an opening set from the Jones Boys, fronted by George’s label-mate and harmony vocalist Don Adams, together with some brief instrumental workouts that showcase the versatility of the musicians...

George himself never had another stab at cutting a live album until the 1980s, so this priceless document of one of the genre’s greatest voices singing most of his important early hits at his 1960s best is all the more valuable for that.

Tony Rounce

"Almost Persuaded"

The way he sings "she had Ruuuuuuuby Red Lips," it's like he's actually outlining the shape of her lips with his voice. I feel like I'm being almost persuaded to sleep with this mystery woman in the barroom too.

Michael Shannon IS George Jones.

Wow.

Tim Blake Edwards as Roy Acuff was a pretty inspired cameo too.

I'll have to check this out. I remember when I first got into George Jones, the liner notes to one of his compilations (probably The Spirit of Country from Sony) retold the story of how he came upon a fight between Tammy and her then-husband and then right on the spot told her that he loved her and she should come away with him. That's some crazy-ass Hollywood melodrama come to life, and it only gets crazier from there.