Interview magazine, November 1992

Bibliography   72 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UK & Ireland weeklies UK & Ireland magazines UK & Ireland newspapers US newspapers US rock magazines US music magazines US magazines US alternative weeklies European magazines European newspapers Canada  •  Mexico  •  Asia Australia  •  New Zealand South America  •  Africa Blogs  •  Fanzines  •  Books Online publications — George Jones No-show George Jones shows up for a transatlantic chat with fan and friend Elvis Costello Elvis Costello George Jones is a country music legend. Esteemed by many as the genre's greatest singer, Jones has been working his vocal magic since the 1950s, when he cut his first records with producer Peppy Dailey on his home state of Texas, where he was born in 1931. Jones is perhaps best known for the music made during his almost twenty-year tenure at Epic Records. Working with producer Billy Sherrill, Jones recorded a string of country classics, including a number of wrenching duets with Tammy Wynette, to whom he was married, often turbulently, from 1969 to 1974. Well documented have been Jones's problems over the years with drugs and alcohol, and his scores of missed performances. Clean, sober, and happily married now at age sixty-one, Jones has just released a new album called Walls Can Fall, his second for MCA. Long an admirer of Jones's music, Elvis Costello sang a duet with Jones — the Costello tune "Stranger in the House" — on the country star's My Very Special Guests record in 1979. Costello also paid homage to Jones on his Billy Sherrill-produced country album Almost Blue (1981) with a rendition of the Jones standard "A Good Year for the Roses" that hit the top ten in the U.K. When asked to con-duct a phone interview from Dublin to Nashville with his country idol on the occasion of Jones's new album, Costello was willing and eager. — P.G. INTERVIEW: Long time no see. GEORGE JONES: I'm tellin' ya. You're a long ways from here, aren't you? I: Yeah, I'm In Dublin. That's where I live now. GJ: Well, we'll have to try to visit with you when we come over. I: Yeah. It's been a long time since you've been over here. GJ: It has. I've just been putting it off 'cause I've had so much going on here. I've gotten into the dog and cat food business and we're running some big promotions and things on that, you know. I: How do you mean? You own a company? GJ: No. Sunshine Mills, a company here in the States, is using my name — George Jones Country Gold Pet Foods. I love the dogs real good. I: It's difficult to keep them, though, Isn't It? I mean, I'd love to have a dog, but— GJ: It's hard to keep one outside 'cause they away or get run over. I: And when you go away and come back, they bite you 'cause they don't know you anymore. GJ: That's true. I've got a small one that we carry with us everywhere we go, on the bus and everything. I: I heard your new record. It turned out really good. GJ: Yeah, we're real proud of It. I: You've got quite a cast of people singing you on that first song, "I Don't Need Your Rocking Chair" [Clint Black, Garth Brooks, T. Graham Brown, Mark Chesnutt, Joe Diffle, Vince Gill, Alan Jackson, Patty Loveless, Pam Tillis and Travis Tritt]. You've got $50 minion worth of country talent on that one track. It's a funny thing. Of the country singers that have come up since we last met, ten years ago, a lot of them seem to be trying to sound not so much like your records on Epic but your records from the '50s and '60s. GJ: That's just the triumph of good ol' country music, you know, the pure stuff. It's kind of came back. These young artists, hell, companies are signing them every day. New faces, new names -- they're going crazy with it. And the radio stations are complaining 'cause they don't have time to work them all. Remainder of article to come. Interview Magazine, November 1992 Elvis Costello interviews George Jones. Images Page scans.