George Jones -
The George Jones Story (rec. 1954-1958, Starday comp 1966)
Vinyl Rip Of The Day.
Long before he was famous for "He Stopped Loving Her Today", leisure suits and Tammy Wynette, George Jones burst on the country scene as both a singer and songwriter of unique power. Like fellow Texan Ray Price, George welded the raw emotional style of Hank Williams to the honky tonk beat of Bob Wills. Unlike Price, Jones began his career with a flurry of his own songs. If Hank Williams was known as the "Hillbilly Shakespeare", George Jones was more like James T. Farrell, capturing the essence of complex people in simple language. He teamed up with a number of talented co-writers, including yet another Texan, the very young Roger Miller, who said of those days "In the beginning, I created heavenly, earthy songs."
These songs largely adopted a disarmingly direct, second person style that made the listener feel like an eavesdropper. Even the titles make for a plausible dialogue between that troubled young couple in the next apartment:
He: "Why Baby Why? I Gotta Talk To Your Heart. Don't Do This To Me."
She: "You've Got A Frozen Heart. That's The Way I Feel."
He: "You Gotta Be My Baby. One Is A Lonely Number."
She: "Uh Uh No. Nothin' Can Stop Me. No Use to Cry."
He: "It Will Take a Long Time To Forget. I'm Gonna Come Get You."
She: "No No Never. Hold Everything."
He: "If I Don't Love You, Grits Ain't Groceries. What Am I Worth? I've Got Five Dollars And It's Saturday Night."
She: "You're Back Again. There Ain’t No Money In This Deal. It's OK. Sweet Dreams."
The album cover above is mine, uploaded to last.fm. I bought this record new around 1969 at a record store called "Nashville Country Records." It was located in Paramount, a suburb geographically adjacent but demographically distant from South Central L.A. From the 30's to the 60's, Southern California was a major manufacturing center with thousands of blue collar factory workers. At one point, it was second only to Detroit in automobile production. The largely forgotten story is here:
Almanac facts, information and trivia about Los Angeles County, its people, cities and communities.
www.laalmanac.com
Naturally these mostly white workers brought their musical tastes with them from the South and Midwest, making the southern part of Los Angeles a surprisingly rich environment for country and even polka music. The Watts Riots in 1965 coincided with the decline of the industrial sector and accelerated racial separation, bringing this musical melting pot to a close.
Here's a later reissue on the Nashville label, Starday's budget line, with several of the same songs in
The George Jones Story:
stars.
www.allmusic.com
