George Jones
Best known for
Lead Vocals
Guitar
Songwriter
George Jones was one of the most influential and admired singers in the history of country music, a stylist whose bending, catching phrasing and aching baritone made him the benchmark against which other country vocalists have measured themselves. Across nearly six decades he charted more than 150 hits, survived a legendary bout with alcohol and no-show notoriety, and delivered in “He Stopped Loving Her Today” a recording routinely cited as the finest country ballad ever cut. Peers knew him simply as “the Possum,” and younger stars treated him as the tradition’s living touchstone.
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- George Glenn Jones was born September 12, 1931, in Saratoga, Texas, in the piney backwoods of the Big Thicket, the youngest of eight children in a poor, hard-drinking household. His father gave him his first guitar around age nine, and as a boy he sang for coins on the streets of nearby Beaumont, where the family had moved into a government housing project.
- He married his first wife, Dorothy, in 1950 at nineteen; the marriage collapsed within a year, and Jones enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1951, serving until 1953.
- Back in East Texas he signed with Starday Records in 1954 and broke through with the honky-tonk single “Why Baby Why” in 1955, a song he co-wrote that reached the country Top 5 and established him on the Louisiana Hayride circuit.
- After moving to Mercury Records in 1957, he scored his first No. 1 with “White Lightning” in 1959, a rockabilly-tinged number written by J.P. Richardson, “the Big Bopper.” The self-penned ballad “Window Up Above” followed in 1960.
- Signing with United Artists in 1962, he cut two of his enduring classics: the pleading “She Thinks I Still Care” (1962), a country No. 1, and the wordplay showcase “The Race Is On” (1964).
- A move to Musicor Records in 1965 produced “Walk Through This World with Me” (1967) and “A Good Year for the Roses” (1970), extending a remarkable run of barroom laments and heartbreak ballads.
- His stormy marriage to fellow star Tammy Wynette (1969–1975) made them country’s reigning couple; their duets “We’re Gonna Hold On” (1973) and “Golden Ring” (1976) both topped the charts, and the pair continued recording together after their divorce.
- In 1971 Jones joined Epic Records and began a defining partnership with producer Billy Sherrill, whose lush, string-laden arrangements framed hits such as “The Grand Tour” (1974) and “The Door” (1975) without smothering the raw ache in his voice.
- Years of alcoholism and, later, cocaine abuse wrecked his health and reliability, and so many missed concerts earned him the rueful nickname “No Show Jones” during the late 1970s.
- His career-defining record arrived in 1980: “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman, spent weeks atop the country chart, became his first million-seller, and won the Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance and the CMA Song of the Year (in both 1980 and 1981).
- The song helped him claim the CMA Male Vocalist of the Year award in 1980 and 1981, cementing a late-career resurgence after years of decline.
- His 1983 marriage to Nancy Sepulvado, his fourth wife, began a gradual rehabilitation; she is widely credited with steadying his life and reviving his touring career with his longtime backing band, the Jones Boys.
- Jones was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992. That same year’s album Walls Can Fall yielded the defiant all-star anthem “I Don’t Need Your Rockin’ Chair,” a collaboration with Vince Gill, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson and other admirers that took the CMA Vocal Event of the Year in 1993.
- The stark 1999 single “Choices,” a reckoning with his own hard living, won him a second Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance and became one of his last great statements.
- He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2008 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012, capping a life in which he was often called the greatest living country singer.
- George Jones died April 26, 2013, at age 81 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. His star-studded funeral drew presidents, peers and disciples, testament to an influence that still shapes how country ballads are sung.
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George JonesPlayed on recordings with George Jones
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George Jones and Melba MontgomeryPlayed on recording with George Jones and Melba Montgomery
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George Jones and Tammy WynettePlayed on recording with George Jones and Tammy Wynette
