The Essential George Jones: The Spirit Of Country [Box]

Performer: George Jones
Artist: Tammy Wynette; Merle Haggard; Johnny Paycheck; Ray Charles; Chet Atkins; Melba Montgomery; James Taylor; The Oak Ridge Boys
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Personnel includes: George Jones, Melba Montgomery, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Paycheck, Merle Haggard, Ray Charles (vocals); Pete Wade, Jerry Kennedy (acoustic guitar); Floyd Robinson, Chet Atkins (guitar); Hargus "Pig" Robbins (Clavinet); Buddy Killen (acoustic bass); Kelso Herston (6-string bass); Jerry Carrigan (snare drum); James Taylor, The Oak Ridge Boys (background vocals). Producers: Pappy Daily, Billy Sherrill, Willie Nelson. Compilation producer: Bob Irwin. Principally recorded in Beaumont, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee between 1955 and 1987. Includes a 32-page booklet with liner notes by Rich Kienzle. If any artist cried out for a cross-licensed, multi-label retrospective, it was George Jones. When Epic/Legacy released the double-disc The Essential George Jones: The Spirit of Country in 1994, he had recorded for no less than six labels -- in chronological order: Starday, Mercury, United Artists, Musicor, Epic, MCA (since then, he's added two more labels: Elektra and BNA/RCA) -- over the course of four decades, a discographical nightmare if there ever was one. The Spirit of Country was the first (and, to date, only) to attempt a serious, multi-label overview of George Jones' lengthy career, and while it has a few flaws, it nevertheless is indeed essential as an overview of his prolific work, tracing his hits from 1955's "Why Baby Why" to 1989's wonderful "The King Is Gone (And So Are You)." That means there's nothing from his MCA records here, but that's not a major problem, since his peak ended when he left Epic, and that entire peak is chronicled here. It is not chronicled evenhandedly, though. Starday and Mercury account for the first seven tracks, then UA is rushed through in three cuts, before moving to five Musicor sides (including "A Good Year for the Roses," previously unavailable on CD). This means the '50s and '60s are finished in 15 tracks, with the remaining 29 songs all from his Epic work of the '70s and '80s. This is a bit of an imbalance, and it's hard not to wish that some of the missing songs -- whether it's "What Am I Worth" or "Things Have Gone to Pieces" -- were here, but, that said, there are no truly essential items missing from his pre-Epic sides. As far as the Epic material is concerned, the 1982 collection Anniversary may have arranged the material in a more dramatic fashion, but 14 of that record's 22 songs are here, including all the really big hits, although there are enough great songs absent -- "Nothing Ever Hurt Me (Half as Bad as Losing You)," "What My Woman Can't Do," "The Battle," and "Memories of Us" -- to still make that collection necessary (much as Rhino's The Best of George Jones [1955-1967] still serves a valuable need). But, this set not only has songs unavailable on other collections, it does do its job very well, providing the best available overview of George Jones' career. It might not have everything, but it has all the important sides, and there simply isn't a better way to get acquainted with George Jones than this. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Entertainment Weekly (12/9/94, p.78) - "...producer Billy Sherrill...brought out [George Jones'] genius for making florid emotionalism sound eloquent..." - Rating: A

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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