R.I.P. George Jones

http://blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2013/04/26/george-jones-country-music-hall-of-famer-and-master-of-sad-ballads-dies-at-age-81/

“The King of Broken Hearts” just broke many more.

Country Music Hall of Famer George Jones, a master of sad country ballads whose voice held the bracing power, the sweetness and the burn of an evening’s final pull from a bourbon bottle, has died after an illness that hosptialized him since April 18. He was 81, and was often called the greatest male vocalist in country music history.

daaaaamn. Guess it's unexpected. Will play "The Door" on loop today.

For real tears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byLcF_4W0hI

bummer. RIP, George!

Oh man, no way! RIP George!!!!

this is awful. and i'm in the office and people have Bowie - Hours on and i need to fucking listen to The Grand Tour / The Door / He Stopped Loving Her Today / The Race Is On / These Days I Hardly Get By.

my favourite country vocalist of all time; possibly my favourite male vocalist.

there will never be another George Jones

Wow, RIP. I wish I still had a riding lawnmower so I could drive it down to the bar in his honor.

aw nooo :( :( :(

one thing that strikes me listening to/watching some things this morning is that the guy sang w/o a trace of a tongue in cheek vibe. some country singers sing a super sad song and kind of wink at the audience/listener like awww isn't that a sad song, but jones just fixes you with that stare and nails every syllable.

RIP Possum

RIP. Very sad.

Oh god - I think if i put He stopped loving her today on right now I would bawl my eyes out

Given what he'd been through, kind of amazing he made it to 81.

Yeah, the longer he kept living, the more I kept thinking "How is this even possible?"

Given what he'd been through, kind of amazing he made it to 81.

― Pope Frank is the messenger of your doom (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, April 26, 2013 10:02 AM

OTM. Honestly, he was one of those guys I could never remember if they'd already died or not. (cf. Jerry Lee Lewis)

Anyway, RIP.

RIP, George

"All dressed up to go away"

rip, george

That sucks - putting on 'Grand Tour' now.

Awful news. RIP. Will be drinking some "White Lighting" tonight and asking "Who Shot Sam?" tonight.

RIP dude with epic catalog and haunting thousand-yard stare

I feel a bit ashamed that i have illegal copies of the 3 Bear Family Boxes (that's 14 CDs covering everything from 1962-71), but i'll certainly think kindly of him as i load them up for an homage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwVrcHBE-OA

one of the two best male country singers of his era (Merle Haggard's the other) - incredible tone and phrasing from the day he first stepped into a studio. His music has meant a lot to me over the years and I'm thankful for his life.

RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTFXRIY6-fE

sigh. seeya, George. Thanks old friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr4CHFXXM-Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3OK2ycIfcc

the song that gets stuck in my head at night and keeps me up

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/305814_539961692713792_650873405_n.jpg

A painting commissioned by The Possum's wife delivered to him on a Christmas Day ..... Here's how I wanna remember him (along with a gazillion great tunes) ...

;_;

His autobiography is the best music book I've ever read. One of the greatest singers in any genre. RIP

yeah? i never know whether to trust musician autobios to be a good read, may have to check that out

I've slogged through many of them myself, and that one is still tops. I think an Amazon review likened it to a mixture of Straw Dogs, Blue Velvet and Coal Miner's daughter, which is pretty accurate.

haha awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wNe7nwvU0A

^^^

I was just coming here to post that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opRLfVuC6fs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QZzrVKGnOk
love this one, and how seriously he delivers it. even though he's standing on a corny porch set he's like "fuck you, yeah i'm standing on a corny set. now CRY."

I like how he started out looking like Robert McNamara in a nudie suit and then slowly morphed into the shaggy-haired+yoko-ono sunglasses leisure suit look

The King Is Gone.
http://youtu.be/M6j2YBD--1U

Is it just me - or does Dylan's croon on 'Self Potrait' owe more to GJ than Woody ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XAgZvW4jP4

Never embeds right from iPhone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6j2YBD--1U

tyler i think he is lip synching in that video no?

Weird thing I can never get out of my head is that during that flap when H. Clinton said she wasn't like Tammy Wynette standing by her man there was an article in The New Republic that called old George a "sheaf-haired country groaner."

This has made me so sad and I've had a much more emotional response to this than I've had to most musician deaths. My father loves George Jones and a lot of my childhood memories are tied to his music.

I totally believe that. Anniversary: Ten Years of Hits is one of the greatest country records of all time. The stuff he and Billy Sherrill did together was unreal -- as (I think 8 once heard it described) some velvety countrified version of Pet Sounds.

RIP.

i think maybe his mercury stuff is best? but it's hard to choose---nearly all phases of his career are filled w/ wonderful records.

This is so wonderful: https://vine.co/v/bxum2aEQxZe

yeah i was thinking about the fact that his catalog for any given decade out of the 50s or 60s or 70s or 80s would rival, like, almost anyone's entire areer (xp)

This is so wonderful: https://vine.co/v/bxum2aEQxZe

― Johnny Fever, Friday, April 26, 2013 9:23 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow. that's beautiful. (also, I have that LP.)

i think maybe his mercury stuff is best? but it's hard to choose---nearly all phases of his career are filled w/ wonderful records.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist)

otm about the Mercury stuff

Cup of Loneliness is one of those comps that's bottomless.

a bottomless... cup?

Someone posted this on my fb timeline - never knew of it before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPVhJnr7rDE

Imagine if George had done 'Hercules'?

i will never not be amazed by aaron neville's biceps

i just picture him serenading you to tears, then punching a massive hole in your kitchen wall

<3

irl lols

Jim Carrey for the biopic. RIP

^^^

Genius

Ha. I was wondering who I was thinking he looked like.

RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5gyWP-Ezk0

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/0433b30576/cold-dead-hand-with-jim-carrey

i was just thinking of that, lol

feel bad that i haven't posted on this thread much because i've focused my energies on a ton of George Jones links and stuff on my twitter feed instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abu9ylsundQ

My memorial appreciation of the George Jones catalog and legacy is being somewhat marred by people on FB and elsewhere using it as an excuse for another round of "they don't make REAL music anymore/commercial pap these days/don't make artists like him anymore" etc etc etc. Which is especially galling in this case because while he was a wonderful singer of amazing songs, lord knows he churned out some chart-chasing dreck.

^^^^^
A sub-species of that has been the 'country music isn't even country anymore' not like George blah blah..... thing is, in chasing up GJ stuff on the tube I've heard lots of Vince Gill, Brad Paisley, and Alan Jackson, doing versions/ duets, and I'm all 'why didn't people tell me?' Gill, especially, is a revelation. I sorta lost touch with mainstream country round about the Randy Travis/ Ricky Skaggs era: Despite the best attempts of Alt- to kill it, country appears to be in quite good shape.

and GJ was definitely a guy who, until the late 80s anyway, pretty much rolled with the punches by which I mean whatever production style was going on at the time. so at least until the last phase of his career he wasn't some honky-tonk traditionalist.

that said, contemporary country does suck, but not b/c it betrayed its roots. it's just horrible.

No it isn't

Despite the best attempts of Alt- to kill it

have been listening to stuff from all over his catalog the last couple days and really through the '90s he didn't lose the plot even if he wasn't regularly dropping classics anymore -- even something that you expect to have some garish dated production like High-Tech Redneck sounds perfectly fine.

just talked to a friend at a small local label, apparently they know someone who's been getting ready to do a GJ covers record for a minute -- i may get a chance to play drums on it or something!

i know a karaoke bar in Baltimore that has a couple dozen Jones songs in the book, have been unsuccessful so far at getting anybody to go up there and sing "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me" with me this weekend

Xpost He and merle and dolly etc. were dropping good records the past decade but without a rubin/jack white promo angle

The Possum had a crazy long career. Guy started out honky tonk near rockabilly and ended up the best country ballad singer probably ever. His 70s music done with producer Billy Sherrill is pretty much 'the sound' of country music of that time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwad0cqB3oQ

No it isn't

― mimicking regular benevloent (sic) users' names (President Keyes), Saturday, April 27, 2013 6:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

chacun a son gout etc

ilm fite over merits of modern country round 5678934

actually that was kind of me trying to not have a fite

Hot licks, well-sung narratives about domesticity and its discontents (divorce, cheatin', drinkin') as well as its pleasures), often garish production -- how is contemporary country any different from its ancestry?

The last contemporary Jones song I remember:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq4Mj7nA0SU

btw it fascinated me how both Hag and Jones recorded albums at the dawn of the eighties -- I'm thinking of Big City and I Am What I Am as sentimental as anything by mainstream boomers. All of'em hitting forty + Reagan catalyzed them. But as soggy as both albums get they're redeemed by fabulous singing, and in Jones' case Billy Sherrill for once swathed him well.

the Aaron Lewis song is the most popular George Jones track on Spotify, pretty disgraceful

Hot licks, well-sung narratives about domesticity and its discontents (divorce, cheatin', drinkin') as well as its pleasures), often garish production -- how is contemporary country any different from its ancestry?

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, April 28, 2013 8:49 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the tempos are all wrong man. the tempos!!

we definitely are missing out on the honky tonk gallup of george's first decade. everything now is a steady tom petty power ballad tempo.

Eric Church!

country music is just going the same direction that all mainstream music is, which is a direction I hate. but there will always be great country songs waiting to be written, so I don't worry too much about it.

hell I liked "5-1 5-0" more than most cuz it sounds like eighties Mellencamp