Saratoga, Texas’ (but broUght up in Vidor) very own George Glenn Jones (AKA the Possum) is a living
embodiment of country music.
Jones’ bouts with the demon rum led to periods where Jones was too incapacitated to play shows and was branded “No Show Jones.” When his second wife, Shirley Ann Corley, hid the keys to every car they owned to keep Jones from traveling to the liquor store to buy booze Jones resorted to the only mode of transportation
available to a desperate man, a ten-horsepower rotary engine lawnmower. It took Jones the better part of an hour and a half to make it the whole 8 miles to the liquor store but get there he did.
But Jones is on his fourth wife, Nancy Sepulvado, and been sober for many fruitful years. I had the pleasure of seeing the him two Halloweens ago at New York’s Carnegie Hall (Kris Kristofferson opened) and he was as smooth and brilliant as you might imagine. Jones is also up for a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievements in the performing arts this year and recently released a CD of unreleased duets, “Burn Your Playhouse Down.”
In tribute to George Jone’s 77th birthday New Yorks WFMU 91.1 fm has posted some tribute mp3s to celibrate.
George Jones – Too Much Water
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICJu2oeiNVY[/youtube]