Step Right Up 1970-1979: A Critical Anthology

Performer: George Jones
Artist: James Taylor; Emmylou Harris
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: This two-disc collection delves into George Jones's 1970s output, shining a spotlight on a period in the country icon's career that may not get as much attention as it should. Hard-line country classicists tend to favor Jones's '60s honky-tonk material, but the maturity and sophistication of his '70s work can't be denied. Some of Jones's most powerful emotional statements came in this period; such tunes as "A Good Year For the Roses" and "The Grand Tour" are the height of pathos, with Jones delivering performances of a Shakespearian caliber. Balancing things out, there are songs that didn't gain as much attention as those, making this an even-handed summary of this important decade in the Ol' Possum's long career.

George Jones is the greatest of country singers but he has also been a victim of the infamous hard-living honky-tonk lifestyle. Though he's gone through several phases, from rockabilly to honky-tonk to countrypolitan, his melismatic, Lefty Frizell-influenced style has remained at the core of his unique sound. His stormy marriage to Tammy Wynette (1969-75) included duet albums of love songs and bitter recriminations. By the late '70s, his drinking and cocaine addiction had made him so unreliable that he was known as "No Show Jones." In 1979 he received medical treatment and staged a significant comeback with I AM WHAT I AM, which included his greatest single, "He Stopped Loving Her Today."

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