In a deeply perceptive essay collected in his book Grown Up All Wrong, the venerable Robert Christgau (longtime music critic for New York's Village Voice) captures what, aside from his voice, makes George Jones so compelling. Although his technical prowess and the unique timbre of his voice (seeming to emanate not from the head or chest, but from a constant sorrow choking his throat into a sob) would be enough, that's not all there is. It's the strange feeling that there's something off about the incredibly harrowing performances he turns out at the drop of a hat.
Christgau notes, as many have noted before, that Jones is a famously shallow character. Those close-set eyes don't seem to hide stunning depths of emotion that he can call on to fuel his histrionic ballads; instead, Jones' most intense performances always seem to be just that, astounding performances, feats of technique and talent that can be turned on and off like a spigot. Put a song in front of him, and no matter whether it's a goofy jingle or a musical setting of a Donald Hall poem, he'll turn out a performance that sounds like it comes straight from the heart.
In short, the man seems to lack introspection. While it's tempting to hunt in his famously dissipated biography (for example, his tumultuous marriage to Tammy Wynette, or the time he was kidnapped by some business associates and put in a room with a pile of cocaine until he was high enough to agree to their wishes) for clues to the wrenching pain he can communicate in song, those clues seem to be false leads. Instead, we just need to take George Jones at face value: if the song makes you sad, why bother asking whether that comes from the singer or from you?
What the appeal of George Jones all comes down to, at the end of the day, is those immodestly emotive performances delivered in that voice, that astonishing voice, deep and full and rich and sounding as though every syllable is wrenched from the throat of a man caught between desperate prayers and miserable sorrow.
George Jones started his singing career in the saloons and honky tonks of East Texas as a teenager, and after a stint in the Marines (partly to escape the aftermath of his first doomed marriage), he signed with the local Beaumont, Texas label Starday.
At first, there was little hint of the full depth of Jones' talent. His first few recorded sides were masterful impressions of other singers — Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams, and Roy Acuff among them — but nothing that sounded like George Jones. Still, between 1954 and 1960, Jones started to build a pretty good career as a hardcore honky-tonker, turning out worthy slices of rockabilly that contained few hints of the full measure of his talent.
Article comments
1 - Vern Halen
Why Baby Why & The Race is On were both covered by Jason & the Scorchers during their career. I;m not a big fan of Jones' ballads, but he oughta get a medal for writing those two rockin' classics.
2 - John Owen
Those are two good songs for sure! It's funny... Jones has this whole parallel career of weird honky-tonk raveups that you never hear about. Just about every LP of his I've ever heard has one or two, and some of them are even half-decent. But it's not what he's known for, and this Essentials disc doesn't contain even one of these songs from after 1964. Kinda a shame.
I've actually never been clear on how much hand Jones had in writing any of his material. Although a lot of his early stuff credits him as a co-writer, I get the impression that that's just a formality for the sake of royalties, and that his co-writers are actually the real songwriters generally.
I beg any and all blogcritics to set me straight on this...
3 - Vern Halen
Correction - sorry. The Race is On was a cover on the first Georgia Satellites 12" EP, not the Scorchers, although who knows? - maybe the Scorchers did it in concert. My memory is good, but it's short.
Yeah, that whole Nashville thing is odd - I figure if you'd look behind the songwriting credits for many major artists you'd find there's more ghost writing than you'd ever imagined.