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

1950: Why Don’t You Love Me — Hank Williams (MGM)

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

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

1980: He Stopped Loving Her Today — George Jones (Epic)

1990: Love Without End, Amen — George Strait (MCA)

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

2010: Water – Brad Paisley (Arista)

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

1965: Connie Smith – Connie Smith (RCA Victor)

1970: Charley Pride – Just Plain Charley (RCA)

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

1980: Kenny Rogers- Gideon (United Artists)

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

1990: Clint Black – Killin’ Time (RCA)

1995: John Michael Montgomery – John Michael Montgomery (Atlantic)

2000: Dixie Chicks – Fly (Monument)

2005: Toby Keith – Honkytonk University (DreamWorks)

2010: Lady Antebellum – Need You Now (Capitol)

Classic Rewind: George Jones – ‘Walk Through This World With Me’

Classic Rewind: Tom Jones – ‘Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow’

A #1 country hit from 1977.

Album Review: ‘She Thinks I Still Care: The George Jones Collection’

George Jones’ landmark 1960 recording “The Window Up Above” was the apex of his years with Mercury Records. It marked his transition from a singer of honky tonk barn burners to a Nashville Sound ballad crooner. By 1962, he made the switch to United Artists Records and continued to perfect his craft. This collection, released in 1997 by Razor & Tie, focuses on his tenure with United Artists, which lasted from 1962 until 1964. Though his stint with the label was a short one, it yielded 151 recordings, including a handful of true classics that are the best of his career prior to his period with Epic Records (1971 to 1991). Twenty-two of those 151 recordings were released as singles, and twenty-one of them are represented here; the sole omission is 1963′s non-charting “Ain’t It Funny What A Fool Will Do.”

United Artists at the time was a fledgling label that had been started primarily to release soundtrack albums of UA films. It later branched out into jazz, and when Mercury executive Art Talmadge was recruited to start a country division, Pappy Dailey and George Jones joined him. They hit paydirt straight out of the box with “She Thinks I Still Care”, his first release for the label. It was his third #1 hit and the biggest record of his career to date. Originally intended as a pop ballad, it was pitched to Jones by former Sun Records producer Jack Clement, who altered the melody to make it sound more country. It has been covered many times by artists such as Elvis Presley, Anne Murray, and Patty Loveless.

George’s next few releases — all released in 1962– didn’t fare quite as well. “Sometimes You Just Can’t Win” reached #17, “Open Pit Mine” peaked at #13, and “You’re Still On My Mind” petered out at #28. His fortunes turned around by year-end, with “A Girl I Used To Know”, a #3 hit written by Jack Clement that is better known in its slightly re-tooled duet version. As “Just Someone I Used To Know”, it has been recorded many, many times, most notably by Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton in 1969. Jones closed out 1962 with “The Big Fool Of The Year”, which peaked at #13. He greeted 1963 with the somewhat similar sounding “Not What I Had In Mind”, a somewhat forgotten and definitely underrated number that reached #7 on the charts.

In 1963, Jones was paired with another Pappy Dailey client, Melba Montgomery, for a series of successful duets, seven of which are represented here. The best known is “We Must Have Been Out Of Our Minds”, which Melba wrote, but all of the Montgomery duets included in this collection are worthwhile. Melba’s raw bluegrass harmonies matched Jones more polished vocal style quite nicely on tunes such as “She’s My Mother”, “Let’s Invite Them Over”, “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and “What’s In Our Hearts.” All of the Jones-Montgomery duets were recorded live in the studio with no overdubs, and George reportedly considers them to be the best duets of his career, trumping even his better-known later work with Tammy Wynette.

After “She Thinks I Still Care”, the best known record from Jones’ UA period is “The Race Is On”, an upbeat number that reached #3 and has also been covered many times by artists such as The Grateful Dead and pop singer Jack Jones (no relation). In 1989 the song revived the flagging career of Sawyer Brown.

In addition to the aforementioned big hits, this two-disc collection is rounded out by some religious songs and a few covers of other artists’ songs, most notably “Faded Love”, which was included on Jones’ 1962 Bob Wills tribute album.

Only a small handful of Jones’ recordings from the United Artists era are considered essential, but it’s my favorite phase of his career from the pre-Epic years. This particular collection is currently out of print. Used copies are available from third-party sellers on Amazon, but they are quite expensive. Bear Family Records released the entire UA catalog in a five-disc box set called She Thinks I Still Care: The Complete United Artists Recordings: 1962-1964, but it too is quite expensive and only of interest to diehard fans. More economical is a single-disc, ten track 2003 collection released by Capitol, also called She Thinks I Still Care. Like the Razor & Tie collection, this one is also out of print, but cheap used copies are available. The song selection on the Capitol disc is meager and there some glaring omissions such as “The Race Is On” and “A Girl I Used To Know.” It’s difficult to find a decent compilation of the United Artists years without breaking the budget, but any money used to purchase any of these recordings is money well spent.

Grade: A

Classic Rewind: George Jones – ‘Love Bug’

Growing older gracefully

Reba McEntire’s latest single, the loud and over-produced ‘Turn On The Radio’, has her firmly following the latest trends. We often bemoan the youth mania which has overtaken country radio in recent years and made it hard for an older artist to get radio play. Reba definitely defied the odds when she made her successful comeback last year well into her fifties, but it’s a shame that she felt she needed to follow the template cut out by today’s young pop-country stars in order to compete with them. Obviously it worked for Reba, who achieved her 24th #1 single with ‘Consider Me Gone’, but personally I preferred the lyrically mature follow-up single, ‘I Keep On Loving You’, where Reba played her age.

No career lasts forever, and only a handful of Reba’s contemporaries can still hope for radio play: George Strait, Alan Jackson, the about-to-retire Brooks & Dunn, are all seeing success in their 50s, but most of their contemporaries, however talented or however bright their star was in earlier years, now struggle to compete with attractive young faces in an increasingly image-conscious era. Female singers in particular struggle to get radio play once they hit their forties, even if, like Reba and Sara Evans, they try to record radio friendly material. Lee Ann Womack is trying to balance radio-friendly material with quality, with some success. Yet the perception than country music is more open to older artists is at the root of the influx of artists from other genres.

Some artists who are no longer selling as well as they did in their heyday have responded by embracing the greater artistic freedom which comes with an independent label and lower expectations, and taken unexpected new routes. Patty Loveless produced her masterpiece Sleepless Nights and last year’s bluegrass project Mountain Soul II, and Kathy Mattea released the acclaimed concept album Coal. Emmylou Harris ventured into Americana territory and gained much critical acclaim. Others turn to religious music. Many stars have done so at the height of their careers (most recently Alan Jackson with his labor of love Precious Memories), and it is even more common to include a religious track on a mainstream album. Others have waited until their star has begun to fade. Randy Travis, once the biggest star in country, released five religious records in six years in the 2000s, and gained a new following in Christian music, although he has since returned to secular music.

Taking the long view, though, country music has historically been kinder to older artists than the youth fixated pop world. Buck Owens’ first retirement, at around 50, was thought premature by fans, and he staged a successful minor comeback a decade later thanks in part to his admirer Dwight Yoakam. Vern Gosdin didn’t have his first solo hit until his 40s and had his greatest success in his 50s in the late 1980s, although his is an extreme example. Our current Spotlight Artist George Jones had his biggest hit, ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’, in his late 40s, and was still charting, at least occasionally, at 70. Other veterans like Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, both now in their 70s, may be missing from radio playlists, but their new recordings are greeted with the respect they deserve. Gene Watson – never as big a star as he should have been – is still making great music and released my favourite album of 2009.

Classic Rewind: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – ‘Home Again In My Heart’

Album Review: George Jones – ‘The Definitive Collection 1955-1962′

We’re starting our look at the career of George Jones with an overview of his early years, courtesy of this compilation, which covers his spells on the Starday and Mercury labels (focussing on the latter). Starday was a Texas label with limited resources which mainly released singles, but it managed to give George his first hit singles. After he moved on, they would release a number of albums containing back catalog material. It was co-owned by George’s first manager and producer (at least in name) Harold ‘Pappy’ Daily, who was to stay with him through several label moves, always having a significant financial interest himself. In fact George later stated that Pappy had little musical input, most of the arrangements being worked out live in the studio by George and the musicians.

Just out of the Marine Corps, George had not quite developed his own artistic voice, as he started out singing mainly up-tempo material in a slightly higher register than he later settled into, displaying the influences of Roy Acuff and Hank Williams, but he is credited with writing much of his own material while on both Starday and Mercury, including a handful of songs which stand today as genuine country classics. The style is generally hard honky-tonk, with some Nashville Sound influences in the last few recordings.

George’s first hit single, the insistent ‘Why Baby Why’ reached #4 in 1955, although a rival cover by the more established Webb Pierce and Red Sovine went all the way to #1 at the end of the year. George wrote the song with his friend Darrell Edwards, one of his main songwriting partners through the 1950s and 1960s, and it is probably better known than many of his recordings from this period simply because it was the first.

‘Just One More’, George’s biggest Starday hit (it reached #3 in 1956), is a ballad with the protagonist drinking away the memories of a lost love, one drink at a time. It is a fine song which deserved to be a hit, but shows George had not yet refined his vocal ability as he was to do soon thereafter. Also from the Starday years is the first version George recorded of an old blues number, ‘I’m Ragged But I’m Right’, a song he was to re-do later on (and more than once). This version is the rawest. He also recorded some rockabilly sides on Starday under the pseudonym Thumper Jones, but these are not represented here, and it was not really the right direction for him.

In 1957 Daily had George’s singles contract transferred to Mercury, and the next few years saw him become a genuine star in country music, and develop the quintessential George Jones vocal style.

Classic Rewind: George Jones – ‘Things Have Gone To Pieces’

Unexpected places

A week ago I was on top of a mountain in Switzerland. I was startled when in the cafe the music playing in the background turned to Lady Antebellum’s ‘Need You Now’. I was in fact vaguely aware that the single had been released to pop radio in Europe as part of a serious attempt to break the group outside North America, following in the footsteps of Taylor Swift’s international assault on the ears of the tone-deaf. It was still a surprise for me to hear it. On investigation, I find the song is currently rising up the Swiss charts. Many country artists try to break Europe, some with more commitment than others, and success rates vary, but it seems to be working for Lady A, with their AC/melodious pop-influenced sound. The more solidly country rooted Brad Paisley was touring in Europe the same week and actually sold out his first London show before ticket sales were formally announced – I missed out on that due to having already planned the vacation time.

It reminded me of the most unexpected place I ever came across country music (also on vacation). That was in the lovely medieval city of Bruges in Belgium, which I visited a few years ago (probably around 2002 or 2003). On my way to a bus stop I came across a little shop selling country and blues CDs. It was closed at that time, but I took note of the opening hours and returned later, to find it had a pretty left field selection, including some really obscure independent releases. I ended up spending most of my souvenir budget for that trip on a selection of albums, most bought unheard, although in some cases they were ones I had read reviews of previously.

One I remember buying was Real Thing, a 2001 album by songwriter Monty Holmes under the joky band name Monty And The Pythons, for which I had been looking unsuccessfully for some time, having enjoyed Monty’s previous album All I Ever Wanted, released under his own name a few years earlier. It turned out not to be quite as good, but still worth having. I also picked up Rodney Hayden’s debut, coincidentally also entitled The Real Thing (both albums included covers of Chip Taylor’s song of that title), and No Regrets, an early release by the Texan Jamie Richards, whose most recent effort I reviewed recently. These two are both great records I still listen to quite often, and would recommend to anyone who likes real country music.

Others well worth the purchase included Shawn Camp’s Lucky Silver Dollar, and Jason Allen’s Something I Dreamed, plus a highly entertaining, mostly up-tempo album by a young man named Elbert West. From female artists there was a pretty good record by a Hispanic singer named Lydia Miller including early versions of ‘Singing To The Scarecrow’ (later cut by Sara Evans) and ‘Man With A Memory, Woman With A Past’ (subsequently recorded by Joe Nichols), Lisa O’Kane’s rather good, slightly jazzy-country ‘Am I Too Blue’, and a fine record from Leslie Satcher, one of the best songwriters in Nashville showing she has a lovely voice as well.

Although it isn’t one of my favorites from this haul, recent events have led me to return to Living In Your World, an uncompromisingly hard country/Bakersfield style CD by a then-unknown Arizona singer-songwriter named Troy Olsen which was produced in California by James Intveld, and featuring Jay Dee Maness (late of the Desert Rose Band) on steel. This showed some promise, but I didn’t hear of him again until recently; he’s spent a number of years honing his craft and eventually got signed to a major label deal with EMI. His debut single for the label, ‘Summer Thing’, is a generic and frankly boring summertime-themed number, and to be honest it would probably have passed me by altogether if I hadn’t recognised his name. Based on that early record, acquired by chance, I do at least feel confident that here is an artist who is genuinely a country singer rather than a pop singer in a cowboy hat, albeit one without the most distinctive of voices, and hope that the material improves – and that he hasn’t had to make too many compromises for the sake of a major label deal.

Where have you been most surprised to hear a country song played in public, or found a country record on sale?

Classic Rewind: Webb Pierce, Carl Smith and Marty Robbins – ‘Why Baby Why’

Spotlight Artist: George Jones (Part 3 of 3)

When George Jones married Nancy Sepulveda in 1983, he finally began to put his personal demons behind him and started the long road to recovery. He quit drinking and got off drugs and started working on rebuilding his reputation which had suffered from missing too many concert dates; though Jones pointed out in his 1996 memoirs that he was never actually booked for a number of appearances he “missed”. Unscrupulous promoters capitalized on his “No Show Jones” reputation by selling tickets to concerts for which Jones had never been slated to appear, and then claimed that Jones had gone a drinking binge and wouldn’t be appearing.

Though his years of drug and alcohol abuse had taken its toll on George’s financial well-being, his records continued to sell well. Rick Blackburn, who was the label head for CBS’s Nashville division in the 1980s claimed that the worse Jones behaved, the better his records sold. In 1991, Jones signed a new record deal with MCA, ending a 20-year association with Epic Records. His first release for his new label was 1991′s And Along Came Jones. Produced by Kyle Lehning, it was the first George Jones album in two decades not produced by the now retired Billy Sherrill.

By this time, the “Young Country” movement had firmly taken hold, and older artists were, for the most part, put out to pasture by country radio. During this time, George began to be regarded as country music’s elder statesman, as nearly every hot new act from Garth Brooks and Travis Tritt to Pam Tillis and Patty Loveless, named him as a major influence on their work. In 1992, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and was also joined by Brooks, Tritt, Tillis, and Loveless, along with Joe Diffie, T. Graham Brown, Mark Chesnutt, Vince Gill, Alan Jackson and Clint Black for “I Don’t Need Your Rockin’ Chair”, said to be a rebuke for being replaced by Ricky Van Shelton on the Dolly Parton duet “Rockin’ Years.” “Rockin’ Chair” was named Vocal Event of the Year in 1993 by the CMA. That same year, the ACM presented Jones with its Pioneer Award. In 1998, he won the CMA’s Vocal Event of the Year award again, this time for “You Don’t Seem To Miss Me”, a collaboration with Patty Loveless.

Although he didn’t rack up any big radio hits during his tenure with MCA, George’s albums continued to sell well; both 1992′s Walls Can Fall and 1993′s High Tech Redneck were certified gold. However, in the late 90s, Nashville labels had become accustomed to platinum and multi-platinum level sales; and artists who only sold 500,000 units had a hard time keeping their record deals. Jones was dropped from the MCA roster in 1999, amidst a huge outcry from his fans from both inside and outside the music industry.

He quickly landed a new deal with Asylum and released Cold Hard Truth, which was both a critical and commercial success, earning gold certification. The lead single “Choices” won a Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 1999. It is probably best remembered for the controversy that ensued when the CMA invited Jones to perform the song on its 1999 awards telecast, but would not allot him enough time to sing the song in its entirety. George considered this an affront and refused to peform the song. Alan Jackson famously protested the CMA’s decision by singing the song on the air himself, halfway into the peformance of his own “Pop A Top.”

1999 was also the year that George suffered a setback in his sobriety. Just prior to the release of his Asylum debut album, he crashed his Lexus utility truck. It took rescue workers two hours to dig him out of the wreckage, and he later spent two weeks in the hospital recovering from his near-fatal injuries. At the time, it had been reported that George was talking to his label head on his cell phone, and was distracted by the truck’s cassette deck, which wasn’t working properly. However, it was later revealed that an empty vodka bottle was found in the vehicle.

Despite the newfound success surrounding Cold Hard Truth, it was Jones’ last studio album for a major label, as Asylum closed its Nashville division in late 1999. Once again without a record deal, George opted to start his own label, Bandit Records, which has released all of his music since 2001.

Jones was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2008, and although at age 78 his voice is no longer what it once was, he continues to be revered as country music’s greatest living singer. He is arguably the most important male singer in the genre’s history after Hank Williams. We hope that you enjoy this month’s coverage, and that you will be inspired to delve into portions of the vast George Jones catalog that you may have missed.

CD Giveaway: Mark Chesnutt – ‘Outlaw’

Congratulations to:  Dee, Jake, Lorendasue, Adam, and Stephanie.  We’ll be contacting you shortly to get your shipping information.  Thanks for commenting everybody, and we hope you come back for our George Jones Spotlight all throughout August.

The Outlaw movement, which reached the peak of its popularity in the late 1970s, was a backlash against the then-prevalent Nashville Sound. The two most famous outlaws were Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, both Nashville veterans whose careers skyrocketed when they were given creative control, which they used to challenge the conventional wisdom of the day. Other famous outlaws included David Allan Coe, Tompall Glaser, Hank Williams Jr., Kris Kristofferson, and Jessi Colter. The first country album to earn platinum certifcation was a 1976 compilation album released by RCA called Wanted! The Outlaws, which included tracks from Waylon, Willie, Glaser and Colter.

Our June spotlight artist Mark Chesnutt pays tribute to these musical outlaws with his latest album Outlaw, which I reviewed earlier this month. It’s an interesting project for Mark, since he generally has not been thought of as a part of any outlaw movement. So that leads us to the question:

Who are today’s Outlaws and why are they considered as such? Five lucky people who answer that question between now and midnight on June 30 will win a copy of Mark Chesnutt’s Outlaw CD.

Classic Rewind: Johnny Cash – ‘This Land Is Your Land’

Have a safe and Happy Independence Day everyone!

Week ending 7/3/10: #1 singles this week in country music history

1950: Why Don’t You Love Me — Hank Williams (MGM)

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

1970: Hello, Darlin’ — Conway Twitty (Decca)

1980: Trying To Love Two Women — The Oak Ridge Boys (MCA)

1990: Love Without End, Amen — George Strait (MCA)

2000: Yes! — Chad Brock (Warner Bros.)

2010: The House That Built Me — Miranda Lambert (Columbia)

Week ending 7/3/10: #1 albums this week in country music history

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

1970: Johnny Cash – Hello I’m Johnny Cash (Columbia)

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

1980: Kenny Rogers- Gideon (United Artists)

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

1990: Clint Black – Killin’ Time (RCA)

1995: John Michael Montgomery – John Michael Montgomery (Atlantic)

2000: Dixie Chicks – Fly (Monument)

2005: Toby Keith – Honkytonk University (DreamWorks)

2010: Lady Antebellum – Need You Now (Capitol)

Classic Rewind: George Jones – ‘White Lightning’

Classic Rewind: Carlene Carter – ‘Me And The Wildwood Rose’

Spotlight Artist: George Jones (Part 2 of 3)

George Jones and Tammy Wynette met in 1966 when they were part of the same package show. They first performed together in 1967 when they were part of a package show with country star David Houston, who had a hit duet with Tammy (“My Elusive Dreams”) on the charts at the time. Tammy had been the opening act; one night Houston’s manager had asked her to allow Houston to go on first, since the singer had something else he’d wanted to later that evening. They wanted Tammy to come on stage during Houston’s segment of the show to perform their duet, and then come back and do her own segment later. Tammy objected and an argument ensued. She had been using Houston’s band because she couldn’t yet afford one of her own. Her refusal to change the sequence of the program resulted in Houston’s manager refusing to allow her to use the band. George Jones quickly came to the rescue; he allowed her to use his band, and also performed Houston’s part of their duet with her.

George had been Tammy’s childhood idol, but although there was a mutual attraction, both were married to other people, and their relationship remained platonic — at first. George’s second divorce was finalized in 1968, and one day he stopped by unannounced at the home of Tammy and her second husband Don Chapel. The couple were having an argument, and when Chapel insulted Tammy, a drunken George took offense. He angrily overturned the dining room table and declared his love for Tammy, who responded in kind. Jones left the house with Tammy and her three children. Shortly thereafter, the Chapels’ marriage was annulled on the grounds that Tammy had violated Alabama law by not waiting a full year after her first divorce before entering into another marriage. George and Tammy announced that they had eloped, though they did not actually get married until the following year.

It was the beginning of a stormy, made-for-the-tabloids relationship, which produced a daughter (Tamala Georgette, born in 1969) and a series of hit duets after Jones signed with Epic Records and Tammy’s producer Billy Sherrill, his 18-year association with Pappy Dailey having deteriorated beyond repair. The marriage ended in divorce in 1975. Jones acknowledged in his 1996 memoirs that his alcohol abuse was largely responsible for the breakdown of the relationship, though he disputed many of the claims that Tammy made in her 1979 memoirs.

Though his marriage to Tammy lasted only six years, his relationship with Epic Records and Billy Sherrill endured for two decades. Many industry insiders were skeptical that Sherrill — who had a reputation as a control freak in the studio — and Jones would be able to get along. Not only did they get along, together they raised George’s career to new heights with classic recordings such as “A Picture Of Me (Without You)”, “The Grand Tour” and “Bartender’s Blues.” But their greatest moment on record came in 1980 with “He Stopped Loving Her Today”, the biggest record of Jones’ career, which earned him another #1 hit, his first platinum album, and a Grammy Award for Best Male Vocal Country Performance in 1980. It was also named Single of the Year and Song of the Year by the Academy of Country Music in 1980 and Song of the Year by the Country Music Association in both 1980 and 1981. It ended a dry spell that had begun as Jones’ alcoholism and drug abuse worsened in the aftermath of his divorce from Tammy. Jones stated that “a four-decade career had been salvaged by a three-minute song.” Written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putnam, it has frequently been named as the greatest country song of all time.

Jones continued to abuse alcohol and cocaine, often missing concert dates, which earned him the nickname “No Show Jones.” Although his recording career had been revived, he continued on a downward spiral personally until 1983, when he met Nancy Sepulveda, who would become the fourth Mrs. Jones, and the woman that George credits with rescuing him from drug and alcohol addiction.