The Grand Tour (24 page)

Another hero of George's youth went down that fall when Bill Monroe, who'd suffered a stroke that ended his performing career, passed away in a nursing home. Ties with other old friends deepened as time passed. Since the nineties, George and Buck Owens had been laughing about their onetime rivalry. Like George, Buck was born into rural Texas poverty, yet his career had been the inverse of George's. Sober, reliable, and professional onstage and in the studio, he developed formidable business skills. He amassed wealth not only through records and concerts, but by owning a successful song publishing company and several radio stations. Still based in Bakersfield, in 1996 he opened Buck Owens' Crystal Palace, a supper club, performing venue, and museum. He had nine statues created to grace the club: himself, Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, George Strait, Hank Williams, Bob Wills, and George, who played the Crystal Palace a number of times.

In the meantime, George and Nancy were involved in another commercial venture, summed up with a thirty-second TV spot titled “George Jones Talks about His Greatest Lines.” He cited “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and “The Race Is On,” adding, “They're all good! That's why they're hits, but I'm about to come up with the greatest line I ever had.” That line turned out to be George Jones Country Gold Dog Food, in three varieties: milk
coated, bite size, and gravy style. (He'd lend his name to Country Gold Cat Food as well.) The ad ended with him smiling, holding two puppies, and saying, “You thought I was talkin' about a new song, didn't ya?”

George would do two more MCA albums, both with Norro Wilson.
I Lived to Tell It All,
in 1997, was clearly named for the book. Buddy Cannon joined Wilson to produce
It Don't Get Any Better Than This,
recorded in 1997 and released in 1998. Wilson remembered the sessions as easygoing, even as the reality was clear that George would never again dominate either record sales or radio. He quickly figured out how to determine George's feelings about a given tune. “If you played him a song, you knew when he didn't like it. He'd start suckin' his teeth. It was hilarious. And you'd say, ‘Okay, I know where we are on that one!' He asked me, ‘How do you know?' And I said, ‘'Cause you suck on your danged teeth!'”

As he admitted in his autobiography, George had never totally quit drinking. He insisted he would have a beer or two here and there, and with Nancy around he was able to better regulate things than he had in earlier times. That applied to recording sessions as well. Wilson recalled one of the sessions he produced when Pee Wee Johnson was still working for George. “I remember bumpin' up against Pee Wee. I went to get a drink of water and he's comin' out of the bathroom. I bumped him by accident, not hard, but he clanged. It was little bottles of vodka in both [his] pockets. We'd be in the control room and George'd be doin' something and he'd say, ‘Where's Pee Wee, Norro?' And I'd say, ‘He's right here. What you need?' He'd say, ‘Tell him to bring me some water!' So Pee Wee'd go out, go to the water [fountain], get a little [water], pour a miniature in there, and that'd be it.”

The year 1997 was a quiet one. He toured and sang with Patty
Loveless on her Top 20 single “You Don't Seem to Miss Me.” But
It Don't Get Any Better Than This
became George's final MCA effort. It was impossible for his singles to get airplay on radio. The growing emphasis on image consultants to build a facade around young stars continued to disgust him. Without a recording contract for the first time since 1954, he felt the loss as a painful blow to his self-esteem despite all the honors he'd been enjoying. He knew the changes in the business were to blame, and he began to feel cast off, even as he continued to deliver professional performances on the road. It gnawed at him that the country sounds that defined his era were a thing of the past. And it scandalized him that so many of the younger acts following Garth seemed less about singing and emotion, more about dazzling audiences by setting off smoke bombs as they performed music full of rock clichés from the seventies. “It was too late,” Wilson concluded. “You're dealing with that wall of new leadership from radio.”

The Nashville Network, however, saw the potential to give George a broader audience when it launched production on
The George Jones Show,
a musical program where he'd feature various artists, many of them good friends from several generations: Marty Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Connie, Dickens, Loretta, Haggard, his ex-backup singer Lorrie Morgan, Loveless, Trace Adkins, and so on. It wouldn't resemble
Nashville Now,
the
Tonight Show–
based format Ralph Emery had used with a desk, couch, and live band. This version would be more intimate.

The show debuted February 17, 1998. Aware George lacked the hosting skills of a Cash or Glen Campbell, producers came up with a more amenable setting. George would sit in a comfortable living room set talking and joking to his guests, reminiscing with singers of his generation, like Haggard and Loretta, and chatting with the younger acts. It was never going to be a ratings block
buster, but it put George in a carefully framed setting where he could relax and be himself.

ON APRIL 6, 1998, GEORGETTE WAS CALLED FROM WORK TO HEAR HER MOTHER
had died after lying down at her Nashville home. Tammy's body lay for hours on the couch where she drew her last breath. Instead of a local physician pronouncing her dead, her personal physician flew in from Pittsburgh to handle the task, an unusual move. George was there for their daughter and—given the rapprochement of the past few years—he was devastated by Tammy's unexpected passing. In a time of unsettling transition, and despite the negative comments he'd made in his book, his public words were eloquent. In a prepared statement, he said, “I am just very glad we were able to work together and tour together again. It was very important to us to be able to close the chapter on everything we had been through. Life is too short. In the end, we were very close friends. And now I have lost that friend. I couldn't be sadder.” He attended the April 9 funeral with Nancy, but he neither sang nor spoke.

The past fifteen years had been a time of rescue, redemption, honors, and growth as George, despite occasional ambivalence, settled into the role of Elder Statesman. But Tammy's death and his disgust at the changes in the industry he loved, including the loss of his MCA deal, gnawed at him. Nancy was dealing with some health issues as well. It all took a toll. George found himself falling into depression. He began drinking more steadily. Realizing the reputation he and Nancy had rebuilt brick by brick could collapse, he did it in secret. Instead of fifths of whiskey, he stuck to vodka in easily concealed pint bottles. This relapse, however, scared the hell out of him. Knowing what was at stake, he walked
into the yard behind his home and prayed for guidance. “I said, ‘Lord, I don't care what it takes. Make me straighten up once and for all and get my life together.' I said, ‘Hit me in the head with a sledgehammer if you have to.'”

The recording situation was soon on the upswing, resolving with the help of friend and veteran Nashville publicist Evelyn Shriver, who was working for Asylum Records. Asylum became George's new label. He was soon back in the studio recording an album that became
Cold Hard Truth
with Alan Jackson's producer Keith Stegall. The material was impressive, particularly “Choices,” a powerful autobiographical ballad written by Billy Yates and Mike Curtis. It was a subdued effort, but one that showed George both restrained and introspective.

He continued to drink in secret, as he was likely doing on the afternoon of March 6, 1999. Driving on State Route 94 not far from the entrance to his estate and horse farm, known as Country Gold Estate, in Franklin, he stopped to assist a motorist. With that finished, he returned to the wheel. Back on the road, delighted with the rough mixes of the album on cassette in his black Lexus LX 470 SUV, he was so excited that he spoke to Shriver on his cell phone, wanting to play her some of the songs. He couldn't get the cassette player to work. He called home, spoke to Adina, and let her know he wasn't far away.

Then she heard him scream, “
Oh my God!
”

The time was 1:30
P.M.

T
he Lexus slammed into the concrete bridge abutment over the creek. George wasn't wearing a seat belt. It took first responders two hours to extricate him, unconscious, from the wreckage. He arrived at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville by helicopter in critical condition, unconscious, suffering from a collapsed right lung, ruptured liver, and, not surprisingly, internal bleeding. Doctors decided to keep him under heavy sedation in the ICU. He was placed on a ventilator. Nancy arrived, and when she held his hand, he squeezed. Within a day he improved to the point that doctors indicated he might be removed from the ventilator.

On March 9, he seemed to be improving. Not only did he sing some gospel numbers, he asked to see gospel vocalist Vestal Goodman of the Happy Goodman Family, whom he'd met just a few months earlier. A day later, he was sitting up in his room, a dramatic
improvement. It turned out to be a bit too fast. Diagnosed with double pneumonia, which he'd suffered some years earlier, George required a respirator and meds to reverse what could have been a serious situation. He later claimed that when the breathing tube was pushed down his throat, a vocal cord was bruised, which had long-term repercussions for his voice. The crisis eventually passed. On March 19, he was discharged and returned to the farm. At the family's request, there was no announcement, which allowed him to depart quietly. An irregular heartbeat brought him back to Vanderbilt April 8, with dehydration blamed as a possible factor. He returned home a day later.

Accident investigators, meanwhile, were busy. On March 11, Tennessee Public Safety officials revealed they found a half-empty pint bottle of vodka in the vehicle. They also alluded to his being on the cell phone and fumbling with the cassette. The investigating trooper expressed a view that alcohol was not a factor, and initially there was no evidence George was intoxicated, despite the vodka. George also didn't seem impaired to the motorist he had assisted just before the crash, nor to EMS personnel on the scene. The Tennessee Department of Transportation later billed him $2,492.44 for repairs to the bridge he hit.

Enough uncertainty remained for the accident investigation to be turned over to a Williamson County grand jury. District Attorney Ronald Davis announced his intention to subpoena George's medical records and call witnesses. Speaking on behalf of the family, Shriver initially insisted they would resist subpoenas, a vow that eventually evaporated. As George's condition improved, media interest grew. When Nashville station WKDF had interviewed him, he claimed he had no memory of the crash, citing the amount of pharmaceuticals doctors had pumped into his system while treating him, insisting he woke up in the hospital
with no idea of how he got there. That was certainly plausible, and it became apparent everything was in a gray area. There was little doubt he'd been nipping at the vodka, but his exact level of intoxication was not clear. The drinking surely contributed to his inattentive driving, as did using a cell phone and fiddling with the cassette player. There was enough wiggle room for prosecutors and George's lawyers to negotiate.

On May 12, a plea agreement was announced. George would plead guilty to driving while impaired, reckless driving, and violating the state's open-container law in Williamson County Court. The reckless-driving charge would be discharged in a year pending completion of an alcohol treatment program and good behavior in the interim. George, who arrived wearing a purple short-sleeved shirt, was fined $550. In court, he admitted to presiding judge Donald Harris that he remembered little about the accident, but he assured Judge Harris, “There will be no more problems at all out of me.” He made no attempt to sugarcoat his lapses. “I do know I was drinking and obviously my driving was impaired,” adding, “I did wrong and I take full responsibility for what happened” and promised to “get my mind straight.” “Truthfully,” he added, “the struggle never ends, and I will get treatment to help me cope better.” He'd admitted in his autobiography that he still drank and had not embraced total abstinence. But he clearly had lost the control he'd had for sixteen years, leading to two weeks in alcohol rehab.

He returned to the stage June 5 at the Kiwanis Community Center in Andalusia, Alabama, an area Hank Williams Sr. played in his early days.
Cold Hard Truth
was released June 22, and “Choices,” the first single, would make it to No. 30, a modest success surely fueled by his brush with death. Mike Martinovich, a veteran of Columbia Records in New York who moved to Nash
ville in the 1980s after George had stabilized, had known George and Nancy quite a while. Doing consulting for Anderson Merchandisers, a huge corporation that handled music marketing for Walmart, he proposed a release-day idea to Nancy. “There was a big Walmart Supercenter on Franklin Road here in Nashville. I asked Nancy if Jones would do a CD signing on the day of release of that album. She said, ‘Well, only if you can guarantee us a crowd.' I said, ‘I don't think it's gonna be a problem.' It was on the heels of all the press about the accident, plus he's George Jones, plus he has a single on the radio.”

When George arrived, he found a line snaking around the outside of the store.

Martinovich marveled at Nancy's approach to handling the fans. “They had a system whereby Jones would just sign his name, one of Nancy's daughters would customize it [with the] person's first name, and Nancy would take a picture at the same time. And this happened all in a matter of maybe five seconds. It was a machine like I'd never seen before. And he sold over a thousand albums that day. Just that one store enabled the album to debut in the Top 20 on the
Billboard
album charts.” The experience was satisfying and Martinovich was delighted. Jones, on the other hand, was restless. “On the way out, I escort them back to their car, and I said, ‘George, why don't you and I just go down on Second and Broadway and have a couple of beers together?' He couldn't
wait
to get out of there. He couldn't wait to get back to his television. He says, ‘Are you
goofy
?'” Ultimately,
Cold Hard Truth
would reach No. 5, George's biggest album success since the
Wine Colored Roses
album on Epic thirteen years earlier.

At his 1999 Fan Fair performance, he thanked everyone for their prayers. An Associated Press account noted he appeared thin and “had trouble hitting low notes,” likely due to the bruised vocal
cord. He also admitted three factors leading to the relapse: Tammy's death after the two had finally reestablished mutual respect, MCA dropping him, and Nancy's health issues. He'd drunk half a pint of vodka and its effects hit him hard since he hadn't been gulping down booze that way in a while. Another story also noted him as “thin and frail,” not all that surprising. The incident, which would have produced a shrug and another bender had it happened in 1980, had deeply shaken him. Still depressed, he spent time talking to Vestal Goodman about himself, his life, and his brush with mortality. That September, they did a video singing the gospel tune “Angel Band.” One segment features George, wearing a pink shirt, standing on the very bridge where he nearly met Jesus firsthand. The video would be nominated for a 2000 Dove Award.

The
George Jones Show
came to an end, but the tours continued. That George had been scared straight seemed clear. “I like to died two or three times,” he admitted. “And it put the fear of God in me. I knew I wasn't no spring chicken anymore. I quit smokin', I quit drinkin'. I even quit drinkin' coffee. All I carry with me now is a bottle of water. I'm clean cut anymore and I want to enjoy my final days and know what life's all about for a change. I'm tired of being in a foggy jungle.” Interviewed by the Christian Broadcasting Network, he described his dark period as a “twilight zone.” The saga wasn't quite over, however. In June, the demolished Lexus that nearly became his death car had its own run of stardom, offered for sale by a local salvage company for $22,000. A local physician purchased it as part of a campaign against drunk driving. It was suspended one hundred feet in the air from a crane with a warning to drive safely over the upcoming July 4 weekend.

George's anger in his drinking and coke days remained the stuff of legend, but his temper could flare when he was sober or in control of his imbibing, too, as it had at the Radio City Music
Hall TNN concert in 1985. Still disgusted with the state of modern country, he was pleased when he was slated to sing “Choices” on the September 22, 2000, broadcast. Nominated for the CMA Single of the Year award, it only made sense for him to perform the song in its entirety. The idiots running the broadcast, however, had a change of heart. The show's producers, clearly ignorant or indifferent to the song's and George's recent history, told him to drastically shorten the performance, citing “time constraints.” He wasn't having it. Outraged and justifiably infuriated, George packed up and left.

Alan Jackson would settle the matter on national TV. Set to perform Jim Ed Brown's 1967 hit “Pop a Top,” from Jackson's recent album of classic country covers, in the midst of the song, the band in on the protest, Jackson defiantly flipped into an entire verse of “Choices,” bringing applause from an audience aware of the slight. George, at home in Franklin, watched with tearful delight. One of many disgusted by the slight, Ricky Skaggs later commented, correctly, that “Country music doesn't honor its elders.” “Choices” won a Grammy for Best Male Country Performance.
Cold Hard Truth
earned a gold record.

Fed up trying to find major labels to sign George, he, Nancy, Shriver, and former Warner Bros. publicist Susan Nadler decided to form Bandit Records. From then on they would produce and release all of George's new albums, starting with his next one, to be titled
The Rock: Stone Cold Country 2001,
an inelegant title by half. The album had three producers: Keith Stegall, Emory Gordy Jr., and Allen Reynolds. Garth Brooks approached George about a duet. Why he bothered is anyone's guess. On July 30, 2001, the media reported George and Garth would record “Beer Run,” a weak, gimmicky song worthy of neither and questionable in the wake of George's recent problems. His voice issues seemed to have
resolved themselves enough that he could go back into the studio. In September, discussing his vocal control, he told the AP's Jim Patterson, “I'm finally right now getting it back. I've had to learn almost over again to control my voice and not go sharp or flat. I'm getting back to the old George Jones, I guess.”

George got along with some of the Opry's Young Turks who used traditional country as a jumping-off point. His contempt for the continued watering down of the music he loved, however, did not abate. In a November 2001 interview I did with him, he continued to inveigh against the rock-and-pop-derived country movement even though it was, for better or worse, part of the music's ongoing evolution. Asked about his disdain for younger country singers of the past decade, he replied, “It's really not their fault. I talk to so many of them that would have loved to record a country album, traditional country. And the label people, the money people don't want that. They can't make enough money to satisfy 'em.

“You can't enjoy what you're not raised on and what you're used to feeling and singing, and I don't know how—there's some great country singers out there. It's just that their voice isn't being put to good traditional country music like they want to be, their own self. They have no say-so like we used to have. If they thought we could sing and make 'em any money, we had a long rope. We could do 'bout whatever we wanted to do. It's all money. It's all people who want to make money and make more of it. And they tried to change the record sales by [creating country styles like] crossover, middle of the road, and all that, and they take away the basics and that's why it's sounding like it is today. You don't hardly hear any good traditional anymore except Alan Jackson and George Strait. Other than that, you got pop music. They should be in the pop field and get the hell out of country, let us get back to doin' our thing.”

George rarely sang songs about wars, except domestic ones.
The Rock
included Jamie O'Hara's ballad about the Vietnam Memorial titled “50,000 Names,” a song that seemed right for the post-9/11 era. He declared, “People are a lot more patriotic today than they seem to have been in the past. We might have had a good wake-up call. I think it's bringin' the people a lot more and we're not hating quite as much. I think we need to clean our lives up, what I'm talkin' 'bout is the filthy films you have to watch on TV and all these things. I think we need to get our morals back.”

In the interview, his opinions about rock musicians and their ties to country had clearly changed as he realized the depth of admiration went beyond Keith Richards and Elvis Costello. “The only rock-type music that I've ever liked at all was in the fifties: Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Little Richard was my favorite. That's all we had to listen to back in the fifties. You had to listen to what you could hear. That rock was three-chord stuff like country music, and if you stop and analyze it a little bit it reminds you of country with a beat, really. You take Fats Domino, he didn't sing nothin' but country music. They get their ideas and styles from different places.”

At the same time, he was flattered by the admiration he received from later generations of rockers. “So many of 'em that love country music, the traditional. That is really something to make note of because it's amazing how they love traditional country music. Keith Richards, you can name 'em. Mick Jagger, he came to the hotel when I was in England wanting to meet me. I didn't even know about it. You'd be surprised at the people I talk to like Elvis Costello who say, ‘I can't sing it, or that's what I'd be singin'.'” His belief in the future and integrity of traditional country music was unshakable. In February 2002 he joined other veteran entertainers protesting a pending format change that would convert
WSM-AM to sports talk, ending the classic country format the station had adopted in the 1990s. In the end, classic country won out.