My distaste for the genre probably began in my early teens with the first pangs of adolescent rebellion. Country was "my daddy's music", so it COULDN'T be any good, right? We'd get in his pickup truck, he'd turn on that chinsy AM radio perpetually tuned to KVOO (the legendary country radio station out of Tulsa) and he'd just start singing, like he knew practically word to every song. I've never really thought of my dad as an extreme music enthusiast. Certainly not to the obsessive point I turned out to be. But looking back I can see that he really did have a decent command of and an ear for that kind of music. I probably just never took it seriously because so many times he would "goof" on some of his favorite performers. By "goofing" I mean that he sang their melodies in an extremely exaggerated manner that pointed out the vocal mannerisms of the artist he was aping. For instance, if he was going to sing "Hello Darling" you can bet he'd take Conway Twitty's "seductive" tone and magnify it then multiply that by 10. I was a stupid kid so to me it just seemed goofy and I guess you don't look to your dad for "goofy" even if you're on the best if terms. If I'd had any sense at all I would have laughed my ass off so many times I'd be as skinny as Twiggy (that's a little inside reference for all of you 70's children). When he wasn't trying to be silly he could really sing well. He had a great voice for that old country music. He'd do his hilarious thing with a song one time, then the next he would sing it like he owned it.
With all that you'd think I'd come to an appreciation of country by then. Nope, I still hated it.
Of all the country legends that he loved, there was one who stood above the rest. George Jones. Jones sometimes had an exaggerated delivery himself, so dad had a hard time going over the top with him. He would try but with no luck. I guess they were on the same wavelength. George's claim to fame were heartbreaking ballads of lost love, and soon enough my old man was feeling those emotions firsthand. I won't go into details as they don't really make a difference in what I'm writing. Suffice to say that "The Grand Tour" took on an entirely new significance.
One day I was in my bedroom doing whatever it was that I did back then. I got up to go to the kitchen so I quietly slipped down the hall. My dad was in the living room watching television. I could see that it was some HBO special musical tribute to George Jones. I silently did my little "hmmmph..country music!" Then I looked over at my dad. He didn't know I was there. He was silently crying. He was crying because the music was getting to him. Surely that happens to all of us at least once in our lives? I couldn't bear to watch for long so I sneaked out the way I came.
...and I thought to myself...what kind of singer can weild his voice so skillfully and powerfully that he can bring a grown man to tears? What kind of artist can deliver a performance just this side of breaking down and then smile and say "thank you" immediately after it's over? What a master. I thought to myself, well, I don't have to like country and western music but I'm gonna like George Jones! And that's how it was for a long time afterwards.
I wasn't prepared for the news that Jones died today. It really bowled me over and had just about the same impact on me had it been a major rock influence that had passed. I'll tell you this...ANY modern male country singer who says he wasn't influenced by George Jones to one degree or another is a liar. To my mind George Jones is every bit the legend that Hank Williams was. I hope he gets the respect he deserves in the music community, and not just within the country genre.
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