The Rock

Performer: George Jones
Artist: Garth Brooks; Patty Loveless; Stuart Duncan
Distributor: Gotham Distributing Corp.

Notes: Personnel: George Jones (vocals, acoustic guitar); Garth Brooks (vocals); Biff Watson, Mark Casstevens, Steve Gibson (acoustic guitar); Brent Mason, Steve Gibson, Richard Bennett (electric guitar); Paul Franklin, John Hughey, Bruce Bouton (steel guitar); Stuart Duncan (mandolin, fiddle); Rob Hajacos (fiddle); Joey Miskulin (accordion); John Hobbs (piano, Hammond B-3 organ); Gary Prim (piano); Bobby Wood, Mike Rojas (keyboards); Emory Gordy, Jr., David Smith (bass); Eddie Bayers, Milton Sledge (drums); Carl Jackson, Patty Loveless, Liana Manis, John Wesley Ryles, Lisa Silver, John Wiggins, Dennis Wilson, Curtis Young (background vocals). Producers: Emory Gordy, Jr., Keith Stegall, Allen Reynolds. Engineers: Justin Niebank, John Kelton, Mark Miller. Recorded at The Sound Kitchen, Franklin, Tennessee; Emerald Studios, Jack's Tracks Recording Studio, and The Sound Station, Nashville, Tennessee. "Beer Run (B Double E Double Are You In?)" was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals. Unknown Contributor Roles: Patty Loveless; Stuart Duncan. After an aesthetic rough patch in the 1980s, George Jones began a triumphant artistic renewal in the '90s that lasted into the 21st century. THE ROCK finds the seemingly tireless country king maintaining his strength. If one overlooks the ultimately harmless presence of Garth Brooks on the pro-suds romp "Beer Run," there's not a false step on THE ROCK. The giddy stomp of the house-rocker "Around Here" conjures memories of the Jones classic "The Race is On." A definitive version of Billy Joe Shaver's Hank Williams tribute "Tramp on Your Street" shows that Jones is still in touch with his roots, as does the combination of hell-raising honky-tonkers and cry-in-your-beer barroom weepers that populate the rest of THE ROCK. Most importantly, that magical, melisma-friendly voice is still fully intact, and Jones deploys it like the master that he is.

Entertainment Weekly (11/9/01, p.111) - "...An affecting collection about deferred dreamss, lost opportunities, and essential connections. At 70, Jones' pinched, wail-and-plunge baritone remains a thing of wonder..." - Rating: A- Q (12/01, p.139) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Impeccable...Jones also turns in at least 4 songs that hark back to his lovelorn career highpoints....all pearls..."

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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