Week ending 7/31/10: #1 albums this week in country music history

1965: Buck Owens – I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail (Capitol)

1970: Tammy Wynette – Tammy’s Touch (Epic)

1975: Merle Haggard & The Strangers – Keep Movin’ On (Capitol)

1980: Waylon Jennings – Music Man (RCA Victor)

1985: Hank Williams Jr. – Five-O (Warner/Curb)

1990: George Strait – Livin’ It Up (MCA)

1995: Shania Twain – The Woman In Me (Mercury)

2000: Dixie Chicks – Fly (Monument)

2005: George Strait – Somewhere Down In Texas (MCA)

2010: Jerrod Niemann – Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury (Sea Gayle/Arista)

Classic Rewind: George Jones – ‘Ain’t It Funny How Time Slips Away’

Classic Rewind: George Jones – ‘Choices’

Album Review: George Jones – ‘Cold Hard Truth’

By the late 1990s, country radio had decidedly cooled toward George Jones, just as it had done with most of his contemporaries. During that decade, Jones had made the transition from hit-maker to country music’s elder statesman. Although the radio hits had tapered off, he still managed to generate respectable sales, with two of his 90s discs earning gold certification. However, the sales weren’t considered good enough for him to keep his record deal, and in 1999 he parted ways with MCA Nashville after an eight-year stint with the label. It looked as though his major label career was over when he was suddenly given a reprieve — albeit a temporary one — when he was signed to the Nashville division of Asylum Records. The label assured him that he could have complete creative control and asked only that he record the album that he would have made twenty years earlier if he had been sober.

Jones teamed up with producer Keith Stegall, best known for his work with Alan Jackson, and his old pals Vince Gill and Patty Loveless who supplied harmony vocals to the project. The album that resulted was Cold Hard Truth, which was released in June 1999. It was hailed by the label as George’s return to hardcore country, which may have been overstating things a bit, since Jones had never abandoned his traditional sound. Still, the album was a change in direction in a sense, as its material was more substantive and serious, with none of the semi-novelty tunes or beat-driven “Young Country” style songs that had been characteristic of his work with MCA.

By this time, Jones had 158 charted singles — more than any other artist in any genre in history — under his belt. He kicked off the Asylum era of his career with “Choices”, a song about living with consequences of one’s actions which Billy Yates and Mike Curtis seem to have written with George in mind. In a just world, “Choices” would have returned George to the top of the charts, much as “Buy Me A Rose” would do for Kenny Rogers a few years later. Unfortunately that didn’t happen, but “Choices” did reach a respectable #30, higher than any of his MCA singles except for “High-Tech Redneck”. Interest in the song was undoubtedly fueled by the controversy that ensued when Jones refused to perform it on the CMA’s award show because that organization refused to allot him enough time to sing it in its entirety. However, the song holds its ground on its own merits, and is one of the finest performances of Jones’ career. One can imagine another singer tackling “Choices” but not with the credibility that Jones brings.

Jamie O’Hara’s “The Cold Hard Truth” was chosen as the follow-up single. It is another fine performance, somewhat similar in theme to “Choices”, but it is not quite as good a song. It stalled at #45. For the next single — his last on a major label — Jones released the more light-hearted and somewhat fluffy “Sinners & Saints”, written by Vip Vipperman, J.B. Rudd, and Darryl Worley. It peaked at #55.

Many artists have difficulty obtaining first-rate material once their hit-making days are over, but that definitely was not the case here. There are some true gems from some of Nashville’s finest songwriters among the album cuts, including “Day After Forever” from the pen of Max D. Barnes, “Ain’t Love A Lot Like That” written by Mark Collie and Dean Miller, “This Wanting You” by Bruce Burch, Bruce Bouton, and T. Graham Brown, and Emory Gordy Jr.’s and Jim Rushing’s haunting “When The Last Curtain Falls”.

The Asylum era appeared to be off to a strong start for the new millenium, but regrettably we will never know what direction they would have taken with subsequent projects. The label’s Nashville office was shut down in 2000 by its parent company Time Warner. George apparently turned down an offer to join the Warner Bros. Nashville roster, opting instead to become a partner with former Asylum president Evelyn Shriver in the newly formed Bandit Records, which has released all of his music from 2001 to the present day.

Cold Hard Truth is somewhat of a creative renaissance for Jones, more consistent in quality than any other album he’d released in the preceding decade. Although at age 68 his voice was beginning to show signs of wear and tear, he proved that he was still worthy of the title of country music’s greatest living singer. The album was meant to be a commercial comeback for George, and indeed it was a both a critical and commercial success, earning gold certification. However, it will be best remembered as the capstone to his major label career and it is hard to imagine how he could have ended his tenure with the majors on a higher note.

Grade: A

Cold Hard Truth is still readily available in both CD and digital form from sources such as Amazon and iTunes.

Classic Rewind: George Jones (with Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Lawrence) – ‘I Don’t Need Your Rocking Chair’

Random playlist 2

It’s been a month since I posted my last random playlist, so I thought I’d update my new favorites list. These are just a selection of songs I’ve been listening to quite frequently lately. Maybe one or more of them are in heavy rotation for you right now too.

Trisha Yearwood – Drown Me … This is just one of the many, many superb tracks on Trisha Yearwood’s Heaven, Heartache, and the Power of Love album, in which she created a template for a modern female country album that’s near perfect. Too bad not many are following her design. This funky, rhythm-driven country romp finds two lovers at the end of their time together, with both realizing it, but neither wanting to hurt the other with a goodbye. Yearwood wryly tells her boy, ‘So won’t you give it to me straight/I got a lot of heart to break/And a lot of love for you that needs to die‘, hoping the un-amicable ending will cool any flames that might remain between the two.

Sunny Sweeney -Refresh My Memory … Like a fool, I let all the glowing recommendations of Sunny Sweeney’s Heartbreakers Hall of Fame album pass right by me, mostly because I’ve always got way too many titles on my to-buy list.  But after hearing her stellar new single, ‘From A Table Away’, I finally picked up a copy of her CD – at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville, no less.  On the drive home to Ohio from that trip, I gave the CD two complete listens, and the first track is the one I was drawn to most.  It’s been an awful long time since she felt the spark this guy brings to her, or perhaps since she’s felt any sparks at all, and with ‘Refresh My Memory’, she implores him to jog her memory a bit.  With steel guitar leading her Texas twang, Sunny glides through the song effortlessly.

George Jones – I’m Not Ready Yet … ‘I’ve always said that someday I was gonnnaa leeeeeaaaaavvee you‘.  So begins this classic George Jones hit where he contemplates over and over again the day he’ll finally leave this relationship that’s been dying for quite some time.  More than once, he set a date to walk out, but he’s just not ready yet to be out on his own.  Maybe someday.

Suzy Bogguss – Aces … Guilt is a very unkind and unsettling emotion.  And some of us don’t take criticism very well.  ’Aces’ addresses both of those topics with candid honesty.  Amidst an elegant backdrop of 90s country production, Suzy Bogguss sings here of the mistakes she’s made, her lover’s reaction, and gives her response to the charges – ‘You can’t deal me the aces and think I wouldn’t play’ – before ending with her declaration of love.  Truly excellent.

Martina McBride – Wrong Again … The continuing countdown of the 400 Greatest Singles of the ’90s at Country Universe brought this song back to my attention again last week.  Since then, I’ve found myself clicking play on it more and more.  One of Martina’s finest and most understated moments, it finds her admitting her own mistakes, and longing to be past making them at this point.  I’m with you, Martina.

Mary Chapin Carpenter – I Put My Ring Back On … The lead single from Carpenter’s latest album didn’t get much attention from country radio, but it’s right up there with the best of her literate and melodic up-tempo tracks.  Finding faith to stay the course in a relationship makes the basis for ‘I Put My Ring Back On’, which, as the title suggests, finds the singer forgiving rather than running away, after a heated fight.

Kenny Chesney – Better As A Memory … Easily my favorite Chesney single from the past decade, ‘Better As A Memory’ is a slow-paced and sparse confessional, and the delivery showcases Kenny Chesney’s ability to wrap into a great lyric, when he’s chosen one.  ’Never sure when the truth won’t do/I’m pretty good on a lonely night/I move on the way a storm blows through/I never stay, but then again, I might‘.  And so goes the revealing testimony in this track.

Jamey Johnson – Women … With romantic entanglement comes frustration.  Jamey Johnson and co-writer Jim Brown come closer to describing the fairer sex than I ever could with this soon-to-be classic cut.  Another confessional, this time framed by a more traditional country production, Johnson tells of his struggles with commitment, ‘I’ve made a sad one laugh/And I’ve made a good one cry/I’ve made one scream my name to the good lord by and by/I’ve made ‘em go insane and I’ve made ‘em go away/Just can’t ever seem to make one stay‘ before concluding his weakness and the self-realization that ‘with any luck I’ll take one home tonight’.

What songs are you playing the most these days? Any particular reason why you’re drawn to them right now?

Classic Rewind: Connie Smith – ‘Why Don’t You Love Me’

Album Review: George Jones – ‘Walls Can Fall’

George’s second MCA album was released in 1992, and showed he was still capable of competing with the younger artists musically, although he was getting squeezed out of radio playlists. Producer Emory Gordy Jr gives the up tempo tracks a muscular rhythmic backing adapted to contemporary radio trends, but the ballads get a more subtle treatment. Gordy’s wife Patty Loveless sings backing vocals, together with Vince Gill.

A select group of younger stars provided backing vocals on the age-defying ‘I Don’t Need Your Rockin’ Chair’, with Vince and Patty joined by Garth Brooks, Joe Diffie, Pam Tillis, T. Graham Brown, Mark Chesnutt, Travis Tritt, Alan Jackson, and Clint Black. George and friends were rewarded with the CMA Award for Vocal Event of the Year, in 1993, although the single was only moderately successful, peaking at #34. Written by Billy Yates, Kerry Kurt Phillips and Frank Dycus, the song has never been a favorite of mine despite its accolades. Lyrically it is dangerously close to a novelty song, with slightly overbearing production.

I prefer the cheerfully rebellious ‘Wrong’s What I Do Best’ (written by Dickey Lee, Mike Campbell and Freddy Weller), the vibrant second single, although it flopped at radio, failing to rise above the 60s. It may have been a mistake not to release the closing track, ‘Finally Friday’ (previously recorded by Earl Thomas Conley). George roars and growls his way through this insistently rhythmic ode to the end of the working week in what is in many ways a more successful defiance of age than ‘I Don’t Need Your Rockin’ Chair’.

A ballad was picked for the final (and sadly noncharting) single, but not one of George’s heartbreak specials. The title track is also an older man’s song but a more dignified one, expressing gratitude for a love breaking through the barriers the protagonist has erected over the years, for which Yates and Dycus were also responsible (together with Bruce Bouton). It is a nice but not outstanding song, and there is better fare of the album, including the album’s other love song, veteran Wayne Kemp’s beautiful ‘Don’t Send Me No Angels’.

In the ironic ‘Drive Me To Drink’, George tells his cheating wife to drop him off at the bar on her way to meet her lover:

You’ll be in his arms again
And I’ll be off the road
The highway will be safer
And they’ll have you to thank
If you’re gonna drive me crazy, baby
Drive me to drink

The storyline may be an implausible spin on the phrase which inspired it, but George sells it vocally, and this is probably my favorite of the up-tempo numbers.

One of the standout tracks is ‘What Am I Doing There’, written by Buddy Brock and Zack Turner, a classic sounding slow sad song as fantasies about a lost love imperil a new relationship, with lonesome fiddle backing up George’s sorrowful and guilt-ridden emoting which recalls his very best:

I no longer know what’s real anymore
In the back of my mind I have opened the door
That leads to the past & the love we once shared
…
How could I explain to the one lying here,
She’s loving me now
What am I doing there?

It is just beaten to the title of my personal favorite on this album by a perfectly structured Gene and Paul Nelson song, ‘There’s The Door’, also recorded by Stacy Dean Campbell, where a man faces a stark choice. Having tried his wife’s patience by staggering home past midnight once too often, he is faced with her ultimatum:

She took a sip of coffee and softly said to me,
“There’s the mantel where we keep our wedding picture
There’s the bedroom where we made both love and war
There’s the ring keeps on slipping off your finger
There’s no reason we should go on anymore
There’s the door”

So I’m back here on this barstool my whole world blown to hell
Behind the bottle there’s a mirror where a fool can see himself
If I were the man I should be and not the one I am
I would go back there this minute and beg for one more chance

There’s the jukebox where I wasted all those quarters
There’s a lady trying to get me out on the floor
And there’s a chance the one I love would still forgive me
It’s a step that I just never took before
There’s the door

I particularly like the fact that we don’t get told whether he makes the choice, and whether that door remains closed or not. My feeling is that he doesn’t, but there is that glimmer of hope.

Also fantastic is the regretful ‘You Must Have Walked Across My Mind Again’, written by Kemp with Warren Robb, which sounds like classic George, as the protagonist wakes up in prison after a drunken brawl which he blames on memories of his ex. George also covers the Haggard classic ‘The Bottle Let Me Down’.

Years of abusing his body with alcohol notwithstanding, George entered his sixties in pretty good shape vocally, and although perhaps his voice was starting to show slight signs of deterioration, his interpretative ability was still second to none. He may have been starting to struggle to compete with younger stars at radio, but this album showed he was still capable of making great music. And although I started out by saying I didn’t much like ‘I Don’t Need Your Rocking Chair’, its chart success helped make this Goegre’s first gold-seller since Wine Colored Roses.

It’s still easy to find, and worth adding to your George Jones collection.

Grade: A-

Classic Rewind: George Jones and Randy Travis – ‘A Few Ole Country Boys’

Album Review: Jerrod Niemann – ‘Judge Jerrod & The Hung Jury’

Jerrod Niemann seems to have something of a split personality musically. He is a competent if not particularly distinctive singer with a nice grainy quality at times, who seems determined to compensate for that by over-ornamenting his records with gimmicks. The songs are interspersed with a set of comic sketches conceived by Jerrod with Dave Brainard (with whom he shares production credits). These share the fatal flaw of not actually being funny. Most of them weren’t even funny the first time I listened to them, with the sole exception of a pointed if unoriginal little jab at radio demographics and teenage girls not being interested in drinking songs. After listening through the number of times I needed to in order to review this, I hated them. Self-indulgent in the extreme, these make an excellent argument to download selected tracks. There is a particularly annoying piece right at the end which implies one needs to be drunk to appreciate the album. I’m not so sure that’s wrong, either.

His current big hit, ‘Lover, Lover’, which has propelled this album to good early sales figures, is a remake of a 90s pop song which is very catchy with multi tracked vocals all from Jerrod himself, even though it has very little to do with country music. There is one other cover, Robert Earl Keen’s double-entendre ‘The Buckin’ Song’, which has some fine instrumental breaks but is tiresome to anyone sober over the age of about 15. Keen is a significant Texas songwriter, but this particular song is juvenile. However, I was familiar with Jerrod’s name as a songwriter, and had hopes for this album. He has written or co-written all but two of the tracks, most often with one Richie Brown.

In fact, one of my favourite tracks was a song which was already familiar. ‘How Can I Be So Thirsty’ was one of my favourite tracks from last year’s John Anderson release, which Jerrod wrote with Anderson and Billy Joe Walker Jr. Jerrod’s version is enjoyable if lacking the vocal punch Anderson brought to this hangover complaint. Jerrod has an obviously penchant for the subject matter, as Jerrod’s only solo composition here is the far less likable ‘For Everclear’, a drunken college (I hope) student’s song rather implausibly involving getting way too close to one of his teachers (an ex-stripper). Niemann appears to be about ten years past the point at which this song would be appropriate.

‘One More Drinking Song’ is a relaxed-sounding defence of that sub-genre, which has no actual reasons included, and has an irritating repeated hey-hey-hey in the chorus, but is good-humored and bearable. It was released as a single last year, but sank without trace. ‘Down In Mexico’ is very nice sounding, but a rather generic Chesney-style song about the impossibility of being depressed on the beach.

Written with Dallas Davidson and Jamey Johnson is the jazzy loungy ‘They Should Have Named You Cocaine’ which is a pretty good song about a woman with a hold on the singer, which would have been more pleasing to listen to without the pointless artificial sound effects in the mix. ‘Bakersfield’ is a pleasant sounding ballad about nostalgia for a weekend’s romance in California. Co-written with Wayd Battle and Steve Harwell, the song isn’t bad but the production gets a bit busy towards the end. ‘I Hope You Get What You Deserve’, a generous goodbye wish to an ex, also has too much going on musically. All these songs might have sounded better with a more stripped down approach.

Classic Rewind: Alison Krauss and Union Station: ‘When You Say Nothing At All’

Album Review: George Jones – ‘And Along Came Jones’

Just as country music was beginning to explode into those boom years of the early to mid-1990s that everyone talks about, George Jones made a significant career move that would kick-start yet another era for him. After more than 35 studio albums, including 12 duets releases, mostly with Tammy Wynette, George Jones made the move to MCA Nashville in 1991, ending a three-decade run with Epic Records. And Along Came Jones, his first album for the powerhouse label was released only 7 months after his final Epic album, Friends In High Places, and charted considerably higher. Friends had peaked at only #72 on the albums chart. More telling was that his previous 3 singles had failed to chart, something that hadn’t happened to a single Jones release in his 35 years releasing singles to country radio. The move did place him with one of the hottest labels at the time on Music Row. Their high-powered promotion team managed to place this album, along with its debut single, inside the very competitive country charts in October of 1991.

Things are off to a good start with ‘Where The Tall Grass Grows’, which was also recorded by Ricky Van Shelton. The narrator in the song has painful memories of the family that once lived in the house that’s now going without care. It’s never revealed if it was the house where he once lived with his family and the couple separated, if the family passed away, or exactly why they don’t live there anymore or what the relationship was. It’s up to the listener to decide, but my opinion is that the narrator once lived in the house with his family, otherwise, he wouldn’t have the key.

‘Honky Tonk Myself To Death’, which tells of a man who’s fed up with life and is throwing away his responsibilities, is a bit of a barroom rocker, as the title might suggest. Jones ably supplies the vocal, but the lyric is rather weak. It’s another of those songs that I think probably sounded and worked a lot better as part of his live show than it came out on record. It also served as the album’s third and final single, reaching only #60 on the charts in 1992.

Stacked back to back in sequence are two of my favorites, in vintage George Jones-style. ‘Angels Don’t Fly’ is a clever heartbroke song, which concludes in the chorus that ‘angels don’t fly, they just walk out the door’. Likewise, ‘You Couldn’t Get The Picture’ finds a woman leaving her man, only this time she leaves several little reminders in the form of post-it notes stuck to numerous common household items, telling our narrator all about where he went wrong, and why she’s leaving. My personal favorite is ‘the on the mirror said, “Take a good look at yourself”. Both songs come complete with stone-country production.  The former served as the album’s lead single, and peaked at a very respectable #32, considering country radio had all but forgotten legends like George Jones, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, and Loretta Lynn, among many others, by 1991.

Classic Rewind: George Jones – ‘The Right Left Hand’

Week ending 7/24/10: #1 singles this week in country music history

1950: M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I — Red Foley (Decca)

1960: Please Help Me, I’m Falling — Hank Locklin (RCA)

1970: He Loves Me All The Way — Tammy Wynette (Epic)

1980: True Love Ways — Mickey Gilley (Epic)

1990: The Dance — Garth Brooks (Capitol)

2000: I Hope You Dance — Lee Ann Womack (MCA)

2010: Rain Is A Good Thing — Luke Bryan (Capitol)

Week ending 7/24/10: #1 albums this week in country music history

1965: Connie Smith – Connie Smith (RCA Victor)

1970: Charley Pride – Just Plain Charley (RCA Victor)

1975: Merle Haggard & The Strangers – Keep Movin’ On (Capitol)

1980: Waylon Jennings – Music Man (RCA Victor)

1985: Hank Williams Jr. – Five-O (Warner/Curb)

1990: George Strait – Livin’ It Up (MCA)

1995: Garth Brooks – The Hits (Capitol)

2000: Dixie Chicks – Fly (Monument)

2005: George Strait – Somewhere Down In Texas (MCA)

2010: Lady Antebellum – Need You Now (Capitol)

Classic Rewind: Moe Bandy – ‘Rodeo Romeo’

Album Review: George Jones – ‘I Am What I Am’

Following his divorce from Tammy Wynette in 1975, George Jones went on an extended downward spiral, mostly propelled by cocaine and alcohol.  Even though his albums continued to sell reasonably well and his singles consistently found their way to the upper reaches of the charts, and even though it was during this period that he recorded some of the best songs and performances of his storied career, George was in the tank personally.  Missing more shows than he actually performed had earned him the nickname ‘No Show Jones’ – which he would later cash in on with a clever name-dropping tune of the same name – and many had counted George Jones out as a major force in commercial country ‘music.  By the end of the 1970s, George would hit rock bottom personally, and would find himself serving a much-needed and well-publicized stint in rehab at a psychiatric hospital in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. What many didn’t know was that Jones’ next release would prove to be his milestone album.  A cleaner, newly-detoxed Jones would emerge around the turn of the decade, and the resulting album he created with long-time producer Billy Sherrill would also ignite his career for the most commercially-successful period he’s ever enjoyed.

Leading it off with what many, including myself, consider to be one of the finest songs ever recorded in any genre of music, and filling the album out with a strong set of songs, performed to vocal perfection by the Possum, makes it not only his most commercially successful, but also one of the landmark recordings in the genre’s history.

Many music scholars and the best critics in the business have analyzed ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’ as one of country music’s crowning achievements, and also one of our most startlingly desolate.  ’He Stopped Loving Her Today’ may have been the perfect marriage of song, singer, and production, but the story behind the recording is also very interesting. Producer Billy Sherrill sent the song back to songwriters Bobby Braddock and Curly Putnam more than once to change the story in the lyrics. When all was said and done, the dark narrative about a lady attending the funeral of the man ‘who loved her til he died’ was thought to be too sad for radio by Jones himself, who bet his producer $100 the song wouldn’t be a hit. History proved Jones wrong, and the recording’s place in history would have sealed whether it became a #1 hit on the country singles chart or not.

Still proving George to be a viable hit-maker in the new decade, I Am What would surface with two more top-ten hits over the next year. During this time, the album was certified gold – the first George Jones studio album to do so – and also became his first platinum-seller after a couple more years on the shelves.

How do you follow a single release as epic as ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’? You do it with another classic, cry-your-heart-out country song. Jones found one that was more than up to the daunting task of follow-up with ‘I’m Not Ready Yet’, written by Tom T. Hall.  ’I'm Not Ready Yet’ would rest at #2 on the singles chart, and usually gets forgotten in discussions of this album, and this period in general of George Jones’ career.  It had the unfortunate distinction of being sandwiched between two now-signature single releases, and while it does lack the clear-the-room punch the album’s other two singles have, it’s my decided pick among the three. Listen to it here to find out why.

‘If Drinking Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will)’ is still a staple of his live shows and one of his best-remembered hits.  Here, he’s simply admitting the devastating effects heartbreak has had on both his body and his mind.  It’s cold-opening and drawing melody make it a sing-along favorite too.  Country radio was still warm to this kind of downtrodden drinking song in 1981, and it climbed to a #8 peak.

Classic Rewind: Waylon Jennings & Jessi Colter – ‘Honky Tonk Angels’

Album Review: George Jones – ‘Wine Colored Roses’

Released in 1986, The Possum’s 18th solo outing for Epic is another stellar entry in his extensive catalog that generated a pair of top 10 hits and earned him the third gold album of his career. The title track, written by Dennis Knutson and A.L. “Doodle” Owens, tells the unlikely story of an alcoholic who sends a bouquet of wine colored roses to his ex, as a not too subtle way of letting her know that he still hasn’t cleaned up his act. In real life, however, Jones had begun to get his life on track, and the album’s next single, “The Right Left Hand”, also written by Knutson and Owens, is likely a tribute to his wife Nancy, whom he credits as the one who helped him reform his ways. A third single, the beautiful “I Turn To You”, from the pens of Max D. Barnes and Curly Putnam, fared less well at radio, peaking at #26.

Billy Sherrill’s production is firmly in the new traditionalist style, likely a result of the massive success that both Dwight Yoakam and Randy Travis had experienced at country radio that year. Jones sounds more relaxed and content than he had on previous albums. “Don’t Leave Without Taking Your Silver” is sort of “A Good Year For The Roses” revisited, though the newer song lacks the intensity of the 1970 classic. This time around George doesn’t make any attempts to stop his wife from leaving, blaming her for the silver in his hair. The light-hearted “The Very Best Of Me” provides a well-timed change of pace as George reveals to his wife what he plans to leave to whom, when his time comes to meet his maker:

Give my dry lips to Jack Daniels
Give the jukebox both my ears,
Plant one foot in Texas, one in Tennessee.
Send my backside to my ex-wife,
Tell her, seal it with a kiss,
Girl, I’m leaving you the very best of me.

My favorite song on the album is “Hopelessly Yours”, a beautiful ballad written by Don Cook, Curly Putnam, and Keith Whitley, that became a hit for Lee Greenwood and Suzy Bogguss a few years later. A close second is a track contributed by Max D. Barnes and the great Harlan Howard. “Ol’ Frank” tells the story of a May-December romance:

She was just seventeen but she was all woman
When Ol’ Frank slipped the ring on her hand
My God, he was wealthy, owned half the county
But he’d never see sixty again.

After ten years of heaven and long nights of love
His ol’ heart couldn’t keep up the pace.
But friends you can bet that he had no regrets,
Ol’ Frank ran one hell of a race.

She cried all the way to the chapel,
Like she really cared for Ol’ Frank
She cried all the way to the grave where he lay,
But she smiled all the way to the bank.

Slightly disappointing is “You Never Looked That Good When You Were Mine”, on which Jones is joined by pop singer Patti Page. The song itself is good and both Jones and Page are in good vocal form, but together they lack the chemistry that made George’s duets with Melba Montgomery and Tammy Wynette so memorable. Weaker still is “If Only Your Eyes Could Lie”, which would have been better suited for Jimmy Buffett than George Jones.

The album closes on a poignant note with “These Old Eyes Have Seen It All” in which an old man reminisces about seeing Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and Elvis Presley onstage, as well as recounting memories of his service in World War II, the moon landing in 1969, and his fifty year marriage to his now-deceased wife.

Though Wine Colored Roses didn’t produce any classic hits of the caliber of “The Grand Tour” or “He Stopped Loving Her Today”, it is still a solid collection of songs that hold up well nearly a quarter century after its release, and it is well worth adding to your collection.

Grade: A-

It is currently out of print in CD form; used copies are available, but they are a little more expensive than usual. It is also available digitally from Amazon and iTunes.

Classic Rewind: George Jones and Emmylou Harris – ‘Here I Am’