George Jones
#
109
Ranking
Hall of Famer
BIRTHDATE
BIRTHPLACE
Saratoga
,
TX
,
USA
81
5
'
7
"
DIED
George Jones was a Saratoga, Texas-born country legend widely regarded as the greatest pure vocalist the genre has ever produced, a man who overcame a violent childhood, decades of alcohol addiction, and the nickname "No Show Jones" to record "He Stopped Loving Her Today" in 1980, a song now considered the greatest country record ever made, and to build a catalog of 166 charted singles and a Country Music Hall of Fame legacy that endures long after his death on April 26, 2013.
Current Tour & Setlist
George Jones performed almost until the very end of his life, with a final concert scheduled for November 22, 2013, that he never got to play. He was hospitalized on April 18, 2013, and passed away on April 26, 2013, at age 81, from hypoxic respiratory failure at his Nashville home. At his funeral on May 2, 2013, Alan Jackson sang "He Stopped Loving Her Today," and Randy Travis and Vince Gill also performed tributes at a service broadcast live on television and radio across the country.
Early Life
Born George Glenn Jones in a log cabin in Saratoga, Texas, in the remote Big Thicket region of East Texas, he was the youngest of eight children in a desperately poor family where his father, a heavy-drinking log truck driver, would wake the children late at night and force them to sing after bouts of drinking, while his mother played piano and organ at the local Pentecostal church on Sundays. When the family bought a radio and young George first heard Roy Acuff and Hank Williams, he was instantly captivated, and after his father gave him a guitar at age nine he was soon busking for tips on the streets of Beaumont before running away from home at 16 to sing on local Texas radio stations.
Career Highlights
After a three-year stint in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War, Jones returned to Texas, caught the ear of Starday Records producer H.W. "Pappy" Daily in Houston, and scored his first country hits with "Why Baby Why" in 1955 before landing his first number-one single in 1959 with "White Lightning," which earned him a slot at the Grand Ole Opry. His career nearly collapsed in the late 1970s under the weight of his alcohol and drug addiction, which earned him the nickname "No Show Jones" for his many missed performances, but it was spectacularly revived when he reluctantly agreed to record "He Stopped Loving Her Today" in 1980, a song he called "morbid" that went on to win him a Grammy and two CMA Awards and is now widely considered the greatest country song ever recorded. Over a six-decade career he placed 166 singles on the country charts, recorded 13 number-one hits, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012, and was honored by President George W. Bush with the 2002 National Medal of Arts.
Family & Personal Life
Jones was married four times, to Dorothy Bonvillion (1950 to 1951), to Shirley Ann Corley (1954 to 1968) with whom he had two sons, to Tammy Wynette (1969 to 1975) with whom he had daughter Georgette in 1970, and finally to Nancy Sepulvado, whom he met on a blind date in 1981 and married in 1983, and who credited with finally helping him achieve lasting sobriety. Jones called Nancy the love of his life in his 1996 autobiography "I Lived to Tell It All," writing that the power of her love had succeeded where friends, family, doctors, therapists, and ministers had all failed, and she remained at his side until his death, later placing a headstone at his grave inscribed with "He Stopped Loving Her Today."
