George Jones's lawnmower

Yesterday, blogging in sub-optimal circumstances, I wasn't able to be as free with finding and providing links as I might otherwise have been. Only today therefore have I tracked down the true story about George Jones from which I derived the scene imagined here. I've known the story for years though I don't recall where I originally came across it. A version:

George Jones has, it is said, the finest voice in the history of recorded country music.

He was also an inveterate alcoholic and junkie with a gargantuan taste for liquor and cocaine. In the early '70s, a couple of years into his marriage to fellow country legend Tammy Wynette, his third marriage, and the booze is causing a few problems.

Their relationship had always been stormy - its tribulations were detailed in their huge number of duets from 'We Can Make It' in 1971 through to 'We're Gonna Hold On' in 1974. Completely floored by his constant drinking, Wynette took drastic measures. She emptied their home of drink. Then she took away his car keys and made Jones a virtual house prisoner in an attempt to wean him off the booze.

One afternoon, alone in the house, Jones had had enough and decided he needed a drink. But their home was quite a distance outside of Nashville and walking was out of the question. The only vehicle with keys was Jones' sit-down lawnmower. So off he went. He was stopped on the freeway close to town.

There's a briefer account in this piece, in which George has some critical observations about the present state of country music:

More astounding to Jones than the perpetuation of pop stars as country icons is the fact that the genre has turned its back on the very themes that define its essence - ones that he has helped perfect over the years. "I can't understand the artists today," he says. "They quit recording cheating and drinking songs, and people still do both. You've still got these people that go in these beer joints, and they still drink and they still party, and women do the same thing, and there's more cheatin' and drinkin' going on, or just as much, as there ever was."

But instead of playing songs dealing with such adult themes, he notes, the airwaves are filled with endless stories of love and faithfulness.

If you'd like to hear George Jones and Merle Haggard together when they're not riding a lawnmower, you should try this, one of the great country music albums: A Taste of Yesterday's Wine.