The Grand Tour (21 page)

The no-shows continued, although on occasions when George was in better shape he could still surprise those closest to him. Murray remembered one northeastern tour that took them to Long Island. “He walked off, come back down off the side of the stage, and he said, ‘Is that enough?' I said, ‘George, I believe if you did fifteen more minutes, we'd be good.' He walked on down there in the dressin' room and pulled off his shirt. He [wore] an old striped T-shirt. And he walked back up there and said, ‘You all care if I sing one more?' He left an hour and a half later.” He also took control when a problem arose at a Wheeling, West Virginia, concert involving a revolving stage that malfunctioned and cut
the electricity to the band's gear. According to Murray, “George said, ‘Oh well, I can handle that.' He just got a bar stool and set down and got his guitar and did the rest by himself. When he wanted to, he could do what he wanted.”

That included times when he just wanted to hang out in Muscle Shoals with friends like Jimmie Hills or Murray. When George was off the road, Murray would pick up the ringing phone and find George on the other end. “He'd say, ‘Me—you—outside in front of the office in a few minutes. I'm pickin' you up in the motor home! We gonna [cook] green tomatoes and Shake 'n Bake in Colbert Park and play some ball.' We were out there one day and the first time we did the ball thing and I kicked it and it went flyin' out across there and it went in the Tennessee River, floatin' down the river, and George just stood there and watched it float off and said, ‘Guess it's useless to ask if you brought another ball.' He liked just gettin' in the car and goin' there, if it was something he was interested in. He just looked for something to occupy his time.”

George, Nancy, and Adina settled in Muscle Shoals, where Nancy began to survey the regulars in his inner circle with a jaundiced eye. The Montgomerys were around, and Peanutt was now pastoring his own church, but the relationship had changed between George and his old friends as he grew closer to Nancy. Elsewhere drug dealers hovered, and rumors flew of life-insurance policies taken out with the expectation that George would soon be history. Nancy claimed a car attempted to force her off a bridge when she was crossing the Tennessee River between Florence and Muscle Shoals. George was vulnerable wherever he went, and local hostility toward Nancy seemed to be mushrooming. Someone was going to get hurt or killed, and finally George, Nancy, and Adina decided to head for Texas.

They were in transit on March 29, Nancy at the wheel of George's Lincoln Town Car with the “POSSUM1” vanity plate as he snorted coke. With Nancy and Adina begging him to ditch his stash, he threw it out the window. But the powder in his bloodstream was still calling the shots. On the interstate near Jackson, Mississippi, George rambunctiously slid his foot over and tramped on the gas pedal, kicking their speed to ninety-one miles an hour. A local officer pulled them over. When he saw who it was, a drug dog was summoned. George was arrested for possession of cocaine. The stash might have been gone, but enough remained on the floor mats and, Murray said, on the toe of one of his boots. Charged and released on bond, George decided to return to Muscle Shoals and relied on booze to get him home.

He, Nancy, and Adina flew through northern Mississippi on March 30. With Nancy again driving and George drinking, he pulled the same tramp-on-the-gas-pedal routine that got him busted in Jackson. Nancy had enough. She pulled over and exited the car. Adina did likewise. Now alone behind the wheel, George sped north on Highway 45. After a couple of turns, he wound up on Grubb Springs Road, running off the road and flipping the car. When Monroe County sheriff's deputy Pete Shook arrived on the scene, he saw the license plate and reported back. Sheriff Pat Patterson, a longtime Jones fan, responded that he knew exactly who it was. George was transported to Aberdeen-Monroe Hospital. Patterson later said he was “so slobbering drunk, he wouldn't have known if he was Roy Acuff or Jesus Christ.”

Meanwhile, unaware of what had happened, Nancy and Adina went to a nearby house and asked to use the phone, telling the woman who answered the door who they were. She replied that she'd been listening to her police scanner and heard George Jones had been in a wreck nearby. Nancy called Gerald Murray. After
some confusion over whether she was in Hamilton, Mississippi, or Hamilton, Alabama, he sent someone to pick her up. Murray agreed that George needed some sort of immediate intervention. With the help of three of George's sisters, Murray had him transferred from Aberdeen to Hillcrest in Birmingham. He was there for fifteen days until the hospital released him after finding someone had slipped him cocaine.

The coke case, obviously more serious, would take considerable time to litigate. As for the DUI, it happened in an era when drunk-driving in America wasn't viewed as gravely as it would be in later decades. George was willing to pay fines. He pleaded guilty and wrote a check to the Monroe County sheriff's office—on what turned out to be a closed account. Sheriff Patterson insisted Jones stopped the payment. His situation grew worse in late April as he missed shows at the Opry House in Nashville, in Birmingham, and a May 1 show in Florence, for which he was later sued. He spent part of the month in Nashville recording with Haggard, who'd signed with Epic.
A Taste of Yesterday's Wine,
named for the Willie Nelson composition “Yesterday's Wine,” was an impressive example of two old buddies simply going into the studio and singing. The other material included “C.C. Waterback,” the album's hit single, and “No Show Jones,” a self-deprecating ditty with an obvious theme.

George's 1982 trail of madness wasn't quite finished. Back in Tennessee on May 25, he was drunkenly speeding down I-65 south of Nashville when Tennessee highway patrolman Tommy Campsey pulled him over. In no time, a Nashville TV station had a crew on the scene as Campsey dealt with a belligerent, drunk, and argumentative George. As Campsey arrested George and moved to put him in the patrol car (without the usually required handcuffs), Jones pulled loose and tried to kick the TV camera
man. Across the country, millions saw the video, showing his body emaciated, his eyes flaring with the psychotic glare of a trapped, desperate man who had lost all hope.

Monroe County, Mississippi, issued an arrest warrant over the nonpayment of the DUI fine, and George received a letter from Sheriff Patterson. The county talked of extraditing him, an absurd idea since at that time the charges were misdemeanors. More illogical were comments from Shook, Patterson's chief deputy, who'd responded to the accident. He told the Associated Press, “We don't think it'll get that far,” meaning extradition. “We don't think he could stand all the publicity.” After the coke bust, the televised DUI arrest in Tennessee, and other recent headlines, it's a mystery why anyone would think more negative press would bother George. Pee Wee Johnson finally drove to Mississippi to personally pay the fine, now $737.50.

In mid-June, Associated Press reporter Joe Edwards filed a story about George's deterioration, one far more ominous than the optimistic stories of the previous year. He quoted Tammy saying, “I don't know where George is. I doubt if even George knows where George is.” Murray told Edwards that his client “told me he wants to be another Hank Williams,” adding, “If something doesn't happen, he won't be around much longer. He needs to go into a hospital on his own to get straightened out.” That view was echoed by Dan Wojick of the Lavender Agency—Shorty Lavender had died in May—who said, “George has to want to help himself.”

In Jackson, Hinds County prosecutors indicted him for the cocaine bust. George also incurred the wrath of
Jackson Daily News Ledger
columnist Orley Hood, who referred to the singer as “Godless and friendless, a moral pauper who is perpetually ashamed of himself.” In Williamson County, Tennessee, where the televised May 25 DUI arrest took place, officials issued an
arrest warrant on July 14 for failure to appear in court. He arrived at the courthouse in Franklin in his tour bus two days later and agreed to give a free concert for the Williamson County sheriff's office as “community service.” Judge Jane Franks fined him fifty dollars plus $123 in court costs.

Pee Wee accompanied him to an August 6 show in Augusta, Georgia. George had his motorcycle with him. After a drunken, half-assed performance that ticked off the audience, he compounded the insult by refusing to sign autographs. Pee Wee, his dark hair styled much like the star's, went to protect the motorcycle only to be attacked by fans thinking he was George. In San Antonio on August 11, an audience of two thousand dwindled to six hundred as he stumbled through a set that included not one but two performances of Hank Sr.'s “I Can't Help It if I'm Still in Love with You.” The bills continued coming due. When he appeared for an October 25 concert in Salem, Virginia, he was served with a judgment for a previous show he'd missed. To satisfy the court, the local sheriff took George's gold watch, diamond ring, and $10,000 in gate receipts. For one small radio station, the constant parade of George Jones headlines was too much. The station manager of WRIJ-AM in Humboldt, Tennessee, northwest of Jackson, cited Jones as a poor role model for his children and declared his records off their playlists.

Taken as a whole, 1982 seemed to have finally moved George to the precipice. As he wobbled there, the slightest wrong move would surely take him over the edge.

H
e'd finally left—escaped Alabama, where the drama, the threats, and the dealers had gotten to be too much. Once his refuge, it had become his, Nancy's, and Adina's own private hell. So George, Nancy, and her daughter settled closer to her home turf: the town of Lafayette, Louisiana. The year 1983 began with him missing a January 19 court date in Jackson on the coke charge, rescheduled to February 10. On the road, he was a bit shaky. At a February 1 concert in his former hometown of Lakeland, Florida, he took the stage after a fifteen-minute delay. Reviewer Dave Stuckrath described him as “not at his best,” but added the opinion that “he wasn't noticeably drunk. He seemed in good spirits and even joked about moving back to Lakeland.” He sang just eight songs, seven hits and his current single, “Shine On,” before leaving the stage. The reviewer was sympathetic and
critical, declaring, “One can't help but wonder what this great singer could do if he had only taken care of himself.”

February 10 brought the rescheduled court date in Jackson, set to convene at nine
A.M.
George didn't arrive until about 11:30. With twenty-five spectators present, he accepted a plea bargain agreed to by his attorney. Prosecutors required him to plead guilty to a single charge: possession of cocaine. Hinds County circuit judge Breland Hilburn then sentenced him to six months' probation and, in lieu of a $30,000 fine, ordered him to perform a concert “for some worthy agencies here in this area in some appropriate amount of time.” The judge also addressed George's unexplained tardiness, fining him $100 for the infraction, warning, “That will be paid before you leave this courthouse.” It was. The worst of his charges was now behind him.

Fifteen years had passed since George, newly divorced and nearly broke, left Vidor and East Texas. Now that region began to seem like a place of renewal. Helen and Dub lived not far from the town of Woodville in Tyler County. Dub remained a simple man of the soil, one of the many qualities that George truly revered. That region held plenty of history for George. Jasper, the town where he'd played music in bars and on the radio with Dalton Henderson in 1947, wasn't far to the east. Lufkin, his daddy's birthplace, sat to the north. Kountze, the Thicket town where young George Glenn and his family moved after leaving Saratoga, where he sang with Brother Burl and Sister Annie, wasn't far south. It was, in short, the optimal place for George and Nancy to take stock and reorganize, far in mileage and spirit from Nashville and northern Alabama.

On March 5, George Glenn Jones married Nancy Ford Sepulvado at Dub and Helen's home. The wedding dinner took place at the Burger King in Jasper, the town where he'd hung out with
Dalton Henderson over thirty-five years earlier. But later that same month, he canceled shows. John McMeen, his booking agent, claimed the singer was severely stressed and fatigued, “brought on by a heavy concert schedule.” He added that since September 1982, George had performed eighty-eight shows as an attempt to restore good faith with his fans. A seven-show European tour set to begin March 30 was also canceled. Clearly, George was still in flux. A show at the Armadillo Palace in Athens, Georgia, went sour when the club owner claimed he did only twenty-nine minutes onstage, walking off as soon as his road manager was handed the $10,000 fee. That brought another lawsuit. He left the road again on May 11, citing problems with bronchitis, laryngitis, and a virus. Still a smoker, he was plagued by respiratory problems on and off for the rest of his life. He recuperated at home, and on June 2 fulfilled his obligations regarding the Nashville DUI by playing a benefit in Franklin, Tennessee.

Health problems aside, with Nancy's tireless support and growing role in his career, he seemed to be gradually halting—even reversing—his decline. Offstage, a desire older than cocaine again reared its head, one that first struck him seventeen years earlier in Vidor, then in Lakeland. He had his brother-in-law scout land for yet
another
outdoor music park, this one set up to accommodate recreational vehicles. Again he seemed bent on cutting back on tours, spending more time close to family, and bringing in friends from Nashville and Texas who would draw consistent crowds. To pay for it, George performed around Texas and Louisiana for the door receipts. He and Nancy scaled back their expenses in ways George hadn't seen since the days when his mother seized upon any way to save a few cents. They maintained a garden near their large modular home, which George had no inhibitions about calling a “trailer house.” The couple's goal: raising money to buy land
for the park. By the spring of 1983, they accumulated enough funds to purchase sixty-five acres near the town of Colmesneil.

Again he planned the facility and did much of the work, clearing the land and doing the construction himself, assisted by Dub, Helen, and their children. There was none of the lavish spending that characterized the park in Lakeland. George recalled, “We built an economical stage and put a sheet metal roof over it. We had electrical hookups for recreational vehicles and another area where folks could camp in tents. There was a concession stand and a restaurant too, and Nancy and I pretty much lived on the property after building the facility.” Jones Country Music Park was ready that fall, slated for a formal opening in the spring of 1984.

On September 16, he performed an hour-and-a-half show in Jackson for an audience of six thousand, raising $18,000 for local charities. Onstage, he was solid and professional. A little over two weeks earlier, he'd appeared on
20/20,
the ABC news magazine, calling himself “a changed and happy man” since his marriage. He'd given up cocaine on his own, claiming he'd simply lost any interest or desire for it.

As for the drinking, it was now under control. Even so, George Jones had not, despite what anyone assumed, embraced total abstinence. He still drank, but with Nancy at his side overseeing things, he was better able to control his intake. Finding the self-discipline to avoid the binges of the past, he slowly regained a level of self-esteem that allowed him to handle his responsibilities, both personal and professional, with greater confidence and consistency than he had for over two decades. Occasional slips happened, and not all of George's no-shows involved alcohol. Past indiscretions, however, continued catching up with him. A few years earlier, George had been chartering planes to handle some of his shows, and the bills weren't being paid. Wake County sher
iff's deputies were present when he and the Jones Boys rolled into the North Carolina State Fairgrounds near Greensboro to play Dorton Arena. Before the show, the authorities seized his Martin D-41 guitar to satisfy a judgment of $5,295 in favor of the aviation company. George was civil and courteous, but the guitar, valued at $4,000, didn't quite satisfy the debt.

He joined the platinum record club in late December when
I Am What I Am,
the Epic album containing “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” earned him his first RIAA Platinum album for sales of a million. Billy had him back in the studio in early 1984 to record another duets collection, this one teaming him with female singers on Epic and other labels.
Ladies' Choice
teamed him with Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris, Lacy J. Dalton, Barbara Mandrell, Terri Gibbs, Janie Fricke, Leona Williams, and Deborah Allen. George kicked off the album with a solo performance of “She's My Rock,” a 1972 single by country singer Stoney Edwards.

Jones Country Music Park officially opened on April 1, 1984, with Johnny and June Carter Cash headlining. Other stars would follow. Tyler County was a dry county, so no alcohol was permitted on the premises. On the road, George began to build a reputation for reliability, more often than not offering sober, good-natured shows. The couple built a large log home on their land. On occasion his bronchitis resurfaced, sometimes forcing him to cancel concerts during tours.

As he began putting the dark years behind him, however, he absurdly opted to retaliate against one of his critics. In July he filed a $30 million libel suit against columnist Orley Hood, claiming Hood's 1983 column about the cocaine incident impugned George's reputation and “generally exposed [Jones] to ridicule, contempt, disgrace, embarrassment and humiliation.” Consid
ering the years of media coverage of George's misdeeds, it's no surprise the suit was dismissed. George's attorney asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to reinstate the case, a futile effort. In his later autobiography, George all but admitted Hood cited facts everyone knew were true.

Texas remained home base as he and Nancy toured or traveled to Nashville for business or recording. In August, he played Pee Wee Johnson's Nashville Supper Club, joined by longtime friend and Opry veteran Connie Smith. Three days later, Epic released “She's My Rock” as a single. The lyrics clearly alluded to his new beginnings with Nancy. It reached No. 2. Speaking to Jack Hurst that fall, George spoke glowingly of his marriage, describing his wife as “down to earth. She ain't no phony. She's just a good ol' country girl. She cuts up a lot, got a good personality.”

GEORGE'S NEW AMIABILITY HAD LIMITS. CABLE TV'S THREE-YEAR-OLD NASHVILLE
Network, TNN, was taping
Radio City Music Hall Welcomes the Nashville Network
in Manhattan in March 1985 for broadcast a month later. George was to host the event, showcasing Epic Nashville artists Mickey Gilley, Ricky Skaggs, Lacy J. Dalton, Charly McClain, Exile, and Mark Gray. While George was gaining strength, his insecurities and sensitivity to slights remained intact. A number of things about the event ticked him off. He objected to singing in front of the full orchestra booked for the show, and he was supposedly upset with the catering in his dressing room and his transportation from his hotel to Radio City and back. When he angrily walked out before the taping began, producers pressed Skaggs into service as the host.

At his lowest, George had traveled the back roads with a cardboard cutout of Hank Williams in his car. Sober, he was in a per
fect position to record a song about past heroes that looked both forward and ahead. “Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes,” cowritten by Troy Seals and Max D. Barnes, was an elegiac number lamenting the passing of many legends, questioning the future of traditional country as the number of stars dwindled, and wondering who would succeed them all. The list was lengthy, encompassing Waylon, Willie, Twitty, Cash, Haggard, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, and Jerry Lee Lewis, with allusions to the departed Elvis, Marty Robbins, Hank Williams, and Lefty Frizzell.

The accompanying music video, the first ever produced for a George Jones record, centered around George's tour bus stopping at a decrepit rural gas station, where the elderly owner asks him to sign a guitar signed by other stars. What could have been trite and gimmicky turned out to be a powerful, moving performance, one that more than merited the CMA Video of the Year Award it won that October. Issued that summer, “Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes” became George's first solo hit of 1985. He may have been nervous at Willie's Fourth of July Picnic nine years earlier, but he had no problems performing at Willie's inaugural Farm Aid concert in Champaign, Illinois, on September 22. A rock club like the Bottom Line might have spooked him at one time, but now he thought nothing of performing alongside the heaviest of heavy hitters: Willie, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, John Mellencamp, Neil Young, and Tom Petty.

A few days later, the Nashville law firm that represented George sued for $124,000 in back legal fees. At a time when George was pulling out of such problems, albeit slowly, he found himself in deeper by failing to appear at a November 1 court date in Nashville. Dan Alexander, Jones's lawyer, noted that George spent time at his East Texas home and in Nashville. Robert S. Brandt, the chancellor overseeing the hearing, wasn't appeased, chewing out Alexander
over his client's failure to appear, stating he didn't know of “any other entertainer of any note” with a worse reputation for not “being where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be here.”

George's loyalty to longtime friends remained strong. On December 19, 1985, Johnny Paycheck walked into the North High Lounge in Hillsboro, Ohio. When a male fan started chatting him up at the bar, Paycheck begged off. When the guy persisted, Paycheck pulled his .22 and shot him in the face. The victim's injuries weren't severe, but the circumstances of the incident were not favorable to the singer. Paycheck, who contended the shooting was an accident, was found guilty of aggravated assault and tampering with evidence on May 17, 1986. He was sentenced to nine and a half years in a state prison, three of those years mandatory since he'd used a gun in a crime. George and Haggard put up $50,000 bond to get him out of prison as he appealed his sentence. When appeals were exhausted, Paycheck entered an Ohio penitentiary. Before Paycheck served even two years, Ohio governor Dick Celeste pardoned him.

Linda Welborn, calling herself Linda Welborn Jones, filed a lawsuit in Alabama that July asserting that she and George had a common-law marriage. The suit, filed in Colbert County Circuit Court, requested alimony payments and a property settlement. One of her attorneys, James Hunt, told Florence, Alabama,
Times-Daily
reporter David Palmer that “she didn't realize her rights until she talked to an attorney.” One element cited to support her case: two life-insurance policies on George listing Linda as beneficiary. The suit stated that the two had parted ways on July 15, 1981.

George and other veteran country singers had despaired that in recent years, the music had ventured too far into a sound that was little more than easy-listening pop. During his worst years, even as “He Stopped Loving Her Today” took him to another level,
the dominant artists embraced the so-called Urban Cowboy sound inspired by the Travolta film, a ballad-heavy style marked by dull, symphonic string arrangements and bland, subdued performances. The chief exponents were Kenny Rogers, Johnny Lee, Crystal Gayle (Loretta Lynn's younger sister), and even Dolly Parton, then hitting her stride as an A-list feature film star. With radio and fans embracing the smoother sound, it dominated the early 1980s.