The Rolls-Royce of Country Music

Well, I’m informed that they did call George Jones the Rolls-Royce of Country Music, but I’m not sure it fits. A Rolls is posh. A Rolls isn’t for driving, it’s for being driven in. And a Rolls is British, and that’s way out of bounds for George. I understand the sentiment. Pretty much every country singer wanted to sing like George Jones. Calling him a Cadillac might seem like faint praise.

More to the point, George was a serious wildman. He stands stock-still, his lantern jaw moving in Clutch Cargo fashion, his hair laid out with a spirit level, so you might be forgiven for thinking that man in the Nudie suit must be a taciturn sort of fellow. But he was anything but. He was an ex-Marine, a famed hellraiser, a skirt chaser, and occasionally had to be put in a straitjacket and carted off to the hospital to dry out. He, ahem, liked to drink a bit. A bit of a still at a time.

No, his voice was clear and powerful, butter and a headbutt at the same time, so he’s no Rolls-Royce. We can do better than that, nickname-wise. Once, his wife tried to keep him from going out and getting drunk, and she hid all the car keys, and went to bed. When she woke up, George was missing. She drove eight miles on the highway to the next town, to the closest place he could conceivably get drunk at, and found George sitting at the bar. Their riding mower was parked out front.

The John Deere of Country Music. There, I fixed it.