George Jones
(Musicor/Time Life)
After time on the Starday, Mercury and United Artists labels between 1957 and 1964 George Jones settled in with the Musicor label from '65 to '71. Musicor was started by Mercury's co-founder Art Talmadge and Harold "Pappy Daily" who had worked with Talmadge at UA. Along with the Platters, Gene Pitney and Melba Montgomery, Jones was one of the first and most successful of the label's artists. The tunes collected here are some of the possum's pre-Billy Sherrill, pre-Tammy Wynette best, from before the kind of substance abuse that got the better of him and led to stunts like drunken riding mower incidents that earned him the nickname "No-Show Jones." This stuff is oh so good. But make no mistake; it's not compromise, crossover good; it's get-that-Shania-Flatts-junk-outta-here good. This is "just us" country for "just us."
Sure, there was great stuff before the Musicor years ("She Thinks I Still Care"; "Window Up Above")) and after ("The Grand Tour"; "He Stopped Loving Her Today") but there's a particular swagger to the Musicor output. By this time-a little before to be fair-Jones had stopped trying to be Hank Williams and was confidently and gloriously George Jones, still keeping his wild side somewhat under control. Whether his glorious pipes were wrapped around the tenderly sentimental "Walk Through This World With Me", the tears in my beer lament "The Honky Tonk Downstairs" (ably covered by Poco) or the flat out silliness of "Milwaukee Here I Come" and "Love Bug," there's no dogging it for the Possum nor any skimping on the quality of the playing and production.
In fact, the biggest quibble with this set, the only quibble, is the lack of player information. Is that Pete Drake or Buddy Emmons, maybe, playing that magnificent steel guitar on "I Can't Get There From Here?" And who is doing that exquisite chicken picking on "Love Bug?" Could it be Reggie Young? Who knows? Pappy Daily's not around anymore but George is still with us, thank goodness. Even if his memory might fail him (for whatever reasons) he could probably come up with one or two names and a little detective work might have had some results. Maybe the players included guitarist Bill Aken (a member of the loose knit aggregation of studio players known as the Wrecking Crew) who also recorded under the name Zane Ashton and worked frequently with Daily. Some of the people involved are certainly still around. Is a little detective work too much to ask of the folks behind these re-release projects? Isn't the information about players and technicians that was left off of the packaging of most records until the late sixties or so (sometimes even later, with country recordings) one of the most important and best features of boxed sets and reissues?
The people playing on this record are on the same high level as Jones. He deserves every bit of the recognition he's gotten over the years; so do those un-credited players who helped make him a star and put a whole lot of coin into the pockets of the labels that put out his records and those who remix, repackage and re-release them.
Standout Tracks: "As Long As I Live"; "The Honky Tonk Downstairs" RICK ALLEN
