CR031/PH17 – Choices: George Jones’ Last Run

150 150 Cocaine & Rhinestones

George Jones' Last Run

 

 

At least this whole story has a happy ending, right? Of course, whether or not that’s true depends a lot on your personal definitions of both “happy ending” and “whole story” but, either way, today we reach the final chapter of George Jones’ life. Don’t worry, it’ll all be over soon.

 

Contents (Click/Tap to Scroll)

Primary Sources

Primary sources for this episode can be found in The Main Library and the Season 2 Library.

 

 

Transcript of Episode

As part of my agreement with Simon & Schuster to publish a book adaptation of Season 2, the transcripts that have been freely available for over a year will be temporarily removed from this website. Please consider ordering a copy of Cocaine & Rhinestones: A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette through your favorite local bookstore or requesting that your local library order a copy you can check out.

 

Liner Notes

 

Excerpted Music

This episode featured excerpts from the following songs, in this order [with links to purchase or stream where available]:

 

Excerpted Video

These videos were excerpted in the episode. For any number of reasons, YouTube (or DailyMotion) may remove them in the future but here they are for now:

 

 

Commentary and Remaining Sources

 

In the audio version of this episode, I said the title of that Elvis album incorrectly. It was just a verbal typo I didn’t catch until it was too late to easily fix and it’s not worth going back to fix now because that was never an accurate title or anything more than another marketing stunt.

As with the Wynonna episode in Season 1, I’m aware of all the tabloid stuff I could have included that has a whole lot to do with the personal lives of George Jones’ family but a bunch of nothing to do with his career. When we’re talking about artists like George Jones and Tammy Wynette, who were selling their personal lives as part of the package, it becomes necessary to cover whatever aspects of their personal lives help understand the package. But I do not feel the need to bring up every little piece of drama, especially those that don’t ultimately affect the whole story in a fundamental way.

Anyone who’s worn a rhinestone suit will tell you they’re heavier and hotter than most people who haven’t worn one would expect. I don’t know about breathability but in Juan Belmonte’s autobiography he talks about how heavy el traje de luces is to wear.

That is Billy Sherril playing the part of the bus driver in the video for “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes.”

As for “Beer Run,” Todd Snider has a whole bit about this and here’s a link to a video of him telling the story, so you should really just go watch that because I’m not going to rewrite Todd Snider material about what sounds a lot like people rewriting Todd Snider material. If you’re lazy and feel like missing out on a great story from a great entertainer, the gist of it is that Todd wrote a song with essentially the same exact chorus, played it live in Nashville and then it shows up on the radio with different verses and credited to someone else as a writer. A legal decision was made to agree each song was written without foreknowledge of the other and I am not privy to any information which may dispute that.

All of my main sources for Season 2 can be found on The Library and Season 2 Library pages. I’m pretty sure I’ve given individual commentary on all the Season 2-specific sources but I’ll make sure to double check and cover anything I missed in the Liner Notes of the next episode because, yes, there is still one more episode left in this season. So, come back in a couple weeks if you want to hear the rest of what I have to say about George Jones.

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CR030/PH16 – Another Lonely Song: The Tammy Wynette & George Richey Story
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CR032/PH18 – Glenn

Tyler Mahan Coe

All stories by:Tyler Mahan Coe
Tyler Mahan Coe
Previous
CR030/PH16 – Another Lonely Song: The Tammy Wynette & George Richey Story
Next
CR032/PH18 – Glenn

Tyler Mahan Coe

All stories by:Tyler Mahan Coe