(Epic-Legacy) As he approaches his 5th decade in country music, George Jones has been heralded as 'The Greatest Living Country Singer.' To many people, his closest friends included, the 'Living' part of the title is perhaps an even greater achievement that the 'Greatest' part. George Jones was blessed with the kind of voice that could manage to make even the most lightweight songs come off convincingly. He was also blessed with the ability to take his voice deep down inside his soul and wring the most wrenching emotion out of every word and note. He was also wracked with demons that drove him to substance abuse. In 1969, he married the First Lady of Country Music, Tammy Wynette, and this union was viewed as something right out of a storybook. In addition to their solo hits, George and Tammy had a string of hit duets. From the outside, they looked like the golden couple, but from the inside the relationship was a tumultuous one which ultimately ended in divorce in 1975. In the 5 years following the divorce, George took a hard plunge into the depths of drug and alcohol abuse. He missed more shows than he made, which earned him the name 'No Show Jones,' and in those that he managed to make, through the combination of drugs and his raging self-contempt, he deliberately sabotaged himself. Even his closest friends were stunned at his self-destruction and rapid disintegration. By 1979 George had hit rock bottom and was committed to a rehab center. He emerged sober, with his voice intact and his next musical triumph in sight.

Released in 1980 and produced by Billy Sherrill, I Am What I Am was George's comeback and musical redemption- showing the world there was no question, George Jones was still a force to be reckoned with. Although George had already been racking up hits and awards for 20 years by this time, it was this album that gave him his signature song, one that would wind up being considered by many to be the greatest country song of all time. Billy Sherrill was obsessed with "He Stopped Loving Her Today," and insisted George cut the song. He had a tough time selling it to George though, as George thought it was a horribly depressing song that no one would ever listen to, let alone even like. Billy persisted and George finally gave in. But it was a slow process, Billy knew had to be done in certain way to work and he took painstaking measures to make sure it would, giving George plenty of time to work with it. The song itself is an over-the-top, overwrought melodrama. A very fine line had to be walked to keep it from coming off like a corny tear jerker, and he knew George Jones was the only one who could pull it off. With a slow, quiet start that builds in mournful, aching emotion as the song progresses, George instinctively hangs back on his vocals in the right spots, lets them soar in the chorus, bends notes choked with emotion in key places, while Billy framed his vocals starting with lonesome restraint and as the emotion builds uses sweeping full orchestration. The end result was, that despite George's apprehensions about the song, "He Stopped Loving Her Today" shot to #1, won top honors at the CMA awards the following year, became his signature song, as well as an all-time country classic.

The rest of I Am What I Am is filled with songs of subjects George is no stranger to, heartache and alcohol. He turns in one of his best performances on the chillingly autobiographical weeper about substance abuse, "I've Aged Twenty Five Years In Five." Although "Bone Dry' is an up-tempo number, it tells the tale of withdrawal, the struggle to stay sober and questions whether he has the strength to stay that way. The sing-along weeper, "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)" finds George singing with a kind of personal resignation where he knows if one doesn't get him the other will. The outstanding weeper, "I'm Not Ready Yet" is about leaving a relationship, yet considering all he'd gone through, and what was yet to come, with lyrics like "I'm still around, I'm not ready yet," the song takes on a greater poignancy and deeper meaning.

He tosses in a couple of cheating songs, the mid-tempo "Brother To The Blues" and the weeper "I'm The One She Missed Him With Today." George offers up a spirited cover of the Willie Nelson/Waylon Jennings hit "Good Hearted Woman." The up-tempo "A Hard Act To Follow" finds George hot on the trail of romance, while he's bound and determined to take back the woman he loves on "His Lovin' Her Is Getting In My Way."

The 2000 Epic-Legacy re-issue of I Am What I Am contains 4 previously unreleased bonus tracks. The barroom weeper "I'm A Fool For Loving Her" involves a love tri-angle and a hopeless situation. "Am I Losing Your Memory or Mine?" is a mournful waltz about getting over a love, while "It's All In My Mind" tackles the same subject as a barroom weeper. "The Ghost Of Another Man" is another weeper, but with a different twist. This one finds George wondering what life must be like for the man who's replaced him in his family's life, when there are so many reminders of him left behind that his new man must face every day.

Although George Jones emerged from rehab and scored a triumph, his sobriety was short lived, and he fell back into his old habits until meeting his present wife Nancy who helped George get his life back on track. He's had his personal ups and downs struggling with his demons over the years, and survived a near-fatal alcohol related car accident in 1999. However he continues to record to this day despite the fact that radio no longer plays his music. George Jones is revered as one of country music's greatest legends, and as Waylon Jennings once commented, "Some of us will last for a while but as long as there is a country music, you'll know who George Jones was."

AnnMarie Harrington TakeCountryBack August 2003