Anniversary: Ten Years of Hits

Performer: George Jones
Artist: James Taylor; The Oak Ridge Boys
Producer: Billy Sherrill
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: 2 LPs on 1 CD. Personnel: George Jones (vocals, guitar); James Taylor , The Oak Ridge Boys (background vocals). Liner Note Author: Billy Sherrill . Recording information: CBS Recording Studios, Nashville, TN. In 1971, George Jones ended an eighteen-year relationship with producer and mentor H. W. "Pappy" Daily, leaving Daily's record label (Musicor) to join Epic Records. At Epic, Jones teamed with producer Billy Sherrill, who had overseen hit sessions for Tammy Wynette, among others. Sherrill's approach to production was more hands-on than Daily's, and Jones was soon making the first highly produced records of his career. The biggest hits produced during the first ten years of Jones and Sherrill's extremely successful collaboration are collected on ANNIVERSARY. Sherrill hit on a simple and effective formula for Jones' sessions: find a good novelty song, a few first-rate heartbreakers, and enough decent songs to flesh out an album; then arrange smooth, inobtrusive backing tracks and lay Jones' amazing vocals on top. The results were neither as raw nor as visceral as Jones' early recordings, but they were great nonetheless. "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is the best example of Jones' style during this period: if you love that song (and who doesn't?), you'll find plenty to enjoy on ANNIVERSARY. Among the twenty-two hits here are "Her Name Is�," "A Picture of Me (Without You)," and "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me."

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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