George and I were from the same corner of East Texas; I was born in Beaumont, him next door in Vidor, a rough and rowdy little spot if there ever was one, full of pine tree cutters and oilfield roughnecks.
Like a lot of other Texas musicians, we were surrounded and involuntarily immersed in many styles of music just because of the geography: South Louisiana only minutes away with Cajun and Zydeco and New Orleans. North Texas and Oklahoma to the north, with lots of 'Okie' country music and Western Swing, from Lefty Frizzell to Bob Wills. Of course, the tremendous Texas Blues influence, just pick a name from T-Bone to Lightnin' Hopkins.
But George was mostly influenced by Opry Greats. You hear a lot of Roy Acuff, and some Bill Monroe and Lefty thrown into the mix. Country music is like most styles of music: Among the great spread of it all, there's always the handful of great innovators and stylists. And that era of country music was, I believe, blues for a segregated society that did not listen to the real thing from black artists, it was just that time / space in history.
I was still living in East Texas in the late 70's and early 80's. By this time, George's demons had well and truly inhabited him, the alcohol overlaid with cocaine mostly. He had gotten to the point he was seeing and talking to a Duck that only he could see, between blackouts, that is. This was when he became 'No Show Jones', infamous for NOT showing up for his road dates due to his condition. He'd had an incendiary marriage to Tammy Wynette, by then history: He wouldn't leave the bottle for her.
At that time you could still get a lot of indulgences from the record company and a lot of the industry, but he made the fatal (career-wise) mistake of screwing over promoters across the country by not making his dates, and once you do that, you're finished.
He returned to East Texas with his new wife, Nancy, and opened a country music park up in the Piney Woods at Colmesneil. He still had lots of big artist friends that would swing through to help him out. His opening act was always his childhood best friend, Benny Barnes and his band. They were two peas in a pod: Drank like Russian sailors, sang alike, played alike, sounded alike, you get the picture. Except George got famous, and Benny stayed a local act. I once watched Benny in a club drink a fifth of Canadian a set, two 50 minute sets in a row, and come off stage looking and acting as if he'd been sipping the same beer since 5 o'clock. Amazing . . .
My brother-in-law at the time played pedal steel for Benny. I'd tag along to watch and hang. Whenever any of George's artist friends offered to take him out to their bus and 'relax', Nancy would shoo them away like a harpy, and you could not get to him without going through her, and generally, you weren't going to get by her. She was an RN, and had that tough side all good nurses have.
Little by little she brought him around, and he survived to essentially have a second career, and,except for a few backslides, have a fairly quiet life past all of his history. And to reach that rare place where he was appreciated and revered while he was still alive to enjoy it, both for his career and talent, and for living to tell about it ! Keith Richard (Woody, too) always had a soft spot for traditional country music, and Keith would never come to Nashville without hooking up with 'the Jones'. Boy, to have been a fly on the wall in those conversations . . .
GJ charted 167 singles over a 50-odd year career, Opry member, USMC veteran, Kennedy center honoree, and surely as big a figure in country music as Hank, Sr. or Cash.
They really DON'T make them like that any more.
J o e y
