George Jones on my iPhone
While I had Southern parents, I didn't grow up with George Jones. My parents didn't listen to country music as far as I heard. The only real
Southern music traditions they brought into the house were my father's love of Dixieland jazz and the hymns my mother used to sing at the stand up piano we had for most of my early childhood (though it was the act of her singing hymns in the living room that probably felt more Southern to me than the hymns themselves, which were Methodist). Growing up in a Midwestern college town with literary aspirations, I avoided country music. It seemed hick and corny to me, something my farmer's sons and daughters schoolmates must listen to on their tractors and combines. I felt surrounded by "countryness" in those days, and longed to be on the east coast or in a bustling city. I listened to old timey crooners in my early teenage years--Julie London, early Barbra Streisand covers of jazz standards, Nat King Cole. And later Billie Holiday, whose records I used to play at night to lull me to sleep.
George Jones found me in my late 20s, when I was living in upstate NY. I had been invited to some friends' party in the snowy surrounding countryside. They asked if I could pick up another one of their friends who didn't have a car. I was glad to as I was an uneasy driver. It turned out the person they wanted me to pick up was a man I'd had a crush on for years. He was from rural Kansas, had a wheat shock of hair which waved above huge blue eyes and a cartoon nose, a facial flaw that made him seem all the more handsome. He had a genuine twang and seemed to always be laughing at some private joke, which maybe had you at its center. We headed out to the party and played nice, tried to act like strangers, but in our small town we knew a lot about each other already without having met. I don't really remember the party, but I do remember we took off early and headed back to town. He invited me up for a drink, and I said yes, floating in the surreal feeling of unspoken dreams answered.
For the next few hours, we sat in the dark, our feet gingerly propped on the open door of the electric stove, its red glowing heat element a makeshift fire, while George Jones played on the boombox. "The Grand Tour" was my favorite that night, and remains so. The elaborate domestic narrative; the impossibly smooth, agile, yet wiry voice of Jones--able to work more syllables into a word than anyone. Later I would discover his early scratchy recordings where he sounds all nasal cavity and Hank Williams (e.g. "Why Baby Why?"), the consummate heartbroke hillbilly. Those early recordings are beautiful in their own austere way. But the peak career recordings of "Tender Years," "From the Window Up Above," "Take Me" etc. most transported me. When I say his name, my voice lapses into an echo of my mother's Georgia accent. (And I may be the only person on Earth who retains a copy of his autobiography). Has ever a man sung pain as openly as George Jones? Not the angry broken heart of rockers, but the self-abasing lament of a self-acknowledged sucker. A well meaning but beer-soaked loser. Hank Williams always seems to have a tongue more fully in cheek about lovelorn matters (e.g. "Move it on Over") or a more purely nihilistic kind of loneliness ("I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"), but Jones' suffering always feels right here on earth, the next bar stool over. Self-pity carved into a gorgeous-throated tool by that elegant twang.
My relationship with the Kansas boy never worked out; his attachment to Jones perhaps should have been a clue to his own broken nature (the NY Times obit devotes almost 3 inches to Jones' addictions and wild days. The trouble started early: he was born with a broken arm). But George Jones has stayed in my life ever since. When I got the NY Times alert on my phone today, I was sad to see Jones was dead. But I was happy to see the Times at least knew his passing was well worth a news alert.
Southern music traditions they brought into the house were my father's love of Dixieland jazz and the hymns my mother used to sing at the stand up piano we had for most of my early childhood (though it was the act of her singing hymns in the living room that probably felt more Southern to me than the hymns themselves, which were Methodist). Growing up in a Midwestern college town with literary aspirations, I avoided country music. It seemed hick and corny to me, something my farmer's sons and daughters schoolmates must listen to on their tractors and combines. I felt surrounded by "countryness" in those days, and longed to be on the east coast or in a bustling city. I listened to old timey crooners in my early teenage years--Julie London, early Barbra Streisand covers of jazz standards, Nat King Cole. And later Billie Holiday, whose records I used to play at night to lull me to sleep.
George Jones found me in my late 20s, when I was living in upstate NY. I had been invited to some friends' party in the snowy surrounding countryside. They asked if I could pick up another one of their friends who didn't have a car. I was glad to as I was an uneasy driver. It turned out the person they wanted me to pick up was a man I'd had a crush on for years. He was from rural Kansas, had a wheat shock of hair which waved above huge blue eyes and a cartoon nose, a facial flaw that made him seem all the more handsome. He had a genuine twang and seemed to always be laughing at some private joke, which maybe had you at its center. We headed out to the party and played nice, tried to act like strangers, but in our small town we knew a lot about each other already without having met. I don't really remember the party, but I do remember we took off early and headed back to town. He invited me up for a drink, and I said yes, floating in the surreal feeling of unspoken dreams answered.
For the next few hours, we sat in the dark, our feet gingerly propped on the open door of the electric stove, its red glowing heat element a makeshift fire, while George Jones played on the boombox. "The Grand Tour" was my favorite that night, and remains so. The elaborate domestic narrative; the impossibly smooth, agile, yet wiry voice of Jones--able to work more syllables into a word than anyone. Later I would discover his early scratchy recordings where he sounds all nasal cavity and Hank Williams (e.g. "Why Baby Why?"), the consummate heartbroke hillbilly. Those early recordings are beautiful in their own austere way. But the peak career recordings of "Tender Years," "From the Window Up Above," "Take Me" etc. most transported me. When I say his name, my voice lapses into an echo of my mother's Georgia accent. (And I may be the only person on Earth who retains a copy of his autobiography). Has ever a man sung pain as openly as George Jones? Not the angry broken heart of rockers, but the self-abasing lament of a self-acknowledged sucker. A well meaning but beer-soaked loser. Hank Williams always seems to have a tongue more fully in cheek about lovelorn matters (e.g. "Move it on Over") or a more purely nihilistic kind of loneliness ("I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"), but Jones' suffering always feels right here on earth, the next bar stool over. Self-pity carved into a gorgeous-throated tool by that elegant twang.
My relationship with the Kansas boy never worked out; his attachment to Jones perhaps should have been a clue to his own broken nature (the NY Times obit devotes almost 3 inches to Jones' addictions and wild days. The trouble started early: he was born with a broken arm). But George Jones has stayed in my life ever since. When I got the NY Times alert on my phone today, I was sad to see Jones was dead. But I was happy to see the Times at least knew his passing was well worth a news alert.
RSS Feed