The Gospel Collection

Performer: George Jones
Artist: Patti Page; Vestal Goodman; Sheri Copeland; Barry Smith
Engineer: Tony Castle
Producer: Billy Sherrill
Distributor: BMG (distributor)

Notes: Personnel: George Jones (vocals, guitar); Bruce Atkins (acoustic guitar); Brent Mason, Reggie Young, J.T. Corenflos, John Willis (electric guitar); Paul Franklin, John Hughy (steel guitar); Glen Duncan (fiddle); Gary Prim (keyboards); Michael Rhodes (bass); Eddie Bayers (drums); Louis Nunley, Bergen White, Curtis Young, Mark Ivey, Ray Walker, Michael Black, Gordon Stoker, Millie Kirkum, Sheri Copeland, The Smith Family (background vocals). Personnel: George Jones (vocals, guitar); Bruce Watkins (acoustic guitar); John Willis, Reggie Young , J.T. Corenflos, Brent Mason (electric guitar); Paul Franklin (steel guitar); Glen Duncan (fiddle); Gary Prim (keyboards); Eddie Bayers (drums); Curtis Young, Barry Charles, Mark Ivey, Mylon LeFevre, Ray C. Walker, Shemekia Copeland, Bergen White, Louis Dean Nunley, Gordon Stoker, Michael Black (background vocals). Recording information: Emerald Studios, Nashville, TN. Photographer: Jim Shea. Arranger: Vestal Goodman. Although country icon George Jones had made gospel albums before this 2003 recording, both solo and with duet partner Tammy Wynette, this one bears a special significance. The two-disc set of spirituals marks the first time he'd tackled such material since an almost-fatal 1999 car accident. The mishap is said to have put him on spiritual notice, so to speak, and inspired this album (though he'd done some secular work in between). The arrangements, quite appropriately, steer clear of the customary gospel trappings and are squarely in the Billy Sherrill/classic Nashvile mold that suits Jones so well. The man's voice remains a marvel of tone and emotion, and hearing him lay into the likes of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee," "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," and even the ubiquitous "Amazing Grace" is nothing short of heart-stopping. No other country singer can emotionally inhabit a song as fully as Jones, and hearing a lifelong hell-raiser try to mend his ways is doubly affecting.

Uncut (8/03, p.100) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...The pain in the songs is sublimated in Jones' still-pure voice. Get over the culture shock, and you may feel comforted..."

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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