Song:He Stopped Loving Her Today
Album:Anniversary: Ten Years Of Hits
George Jones is one of the all time greats of country music. He started out in the 50s as a honky tonk singer in the tradition of Hank Williams and later had a lot of success as a singer of teary love songs. He Stopped Loving Her Today was one of his 14 number one country hits in 1980. He was born Sept. 12, 1931 in Saratoga, TX which is near Beaumont. He busked on the streets of Beaumont as a teen, got married at age 19. But the marriage only lasted a year and Jones served in The Marines during the Korean War. He never went overseas. He was stationed in California and sang in bars. Upon his 1953 discharge, he was discovered by Starday Records owner Pappy Daily. His biggest hits in those days was White Lightning and Tender Years in 1959. Both were number one country hits. Starday had a distribution deal with Mercury. When Daily left to become a staff producer at United Artists in 1962, Jones went with him. He had a few hit duets with Melba Montgomery and also scored with the 1963 novelty song The Race Is On. In 1965, Daily moved again, this time to Musicor and Jones went with him. He recorded a lot at Musicor and though he continued to be a presence on the country charts, a lot of his records weren't that good. Meanwhile, Jones' second wife filed for divorce. He moved to Nashville and married country music superstar Tammy Wynette in 1969. He wanted to record with her but she was on Epic Records and Daily wouldn't allow it. He left in 1971 after recording enough material so Musicor would continue to release Jones albums for years. He signed with Epic and worked with legendary producer Billy Sherrill who also produced Wynette's records. Once Jones got used to Sherrill's production style, it was a very productive relationship. Jones had several hits including several duets with Wynette. She left him in 1975 but they continued to record together. His drinking got out of control and he was addicted to cocaine. He missed a lot of shows but went into rehab in 1979. He Stopped Loving Her Today was his comeback and it topped the country charts in 1980. Of course a lot of folks thought the song was about his marriage. The song was written by veteran songwriters Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman who had written other songs for Jones. Braddock started out in 1965 as Marty Robbins' pianist and has written hundreds of hits. Putman's biggest hit was the hit Green Green Grass Of Home. Jones continued to have hits in the 80s but hadn't kicked his demons. He was arrested for DUI in 1983. He married Nancy Sepulveda in 1983 and she straightened him out. Jones started to fade and left Epic for MCA in 1987. He didn't have the same success there. You can get all his Epic hits on this budget comp. George Jones still tours and records and his influence on today's country artists is immeasurable. Here's George Jones performing He Stopped Loving Her Today on The Ronnie Prophet Show July 1980.
No comments:
Post a Comment