Jones began his music career in 1954, after being discharged from the Marines. Jones quit school in the seventh grade and began singing gospel songs on the streets of Port Arthur, Texas.Īfter leaving home at 16, Jones married Dorothy Bonvillion at 17, producing a daughter, but was divorced before her birth. He bought Jones his first guitar for his 11th birthday, and would beat the boy if he didn’t sing for his drinking buddies. His father tended to be a violent alcoholic. He was born in the oil field town of Saratoga, Texas in 1931, and started playing guitar by nine. It didn’t matter if it was a rollicking Saturday night or his records were selling well – Jones knew his personal demons were waiting for him once the spotlight dimmed. Yet it didn’t matter whom he was singing with or how many were in the crowd, Jones always kept a sense of private turmoil about himself. Fans hung on every syllable listening for the quiver in his voice to get a sense of how bad the circumstances were about to get.īallads and duets became his specialty. His distinctive baritone styling and use of pacing in his storytelling created a sense of suspense in his singing. He may have been a mess, but Jones wasn’t boring, and along the way he became the voice of country music for better than 40 years.
He lived his songs first person, putting himself in the crosshairs of tragedy and despair with his drinking, drug use, and divorces. Jones was the epitome of a country singer. The train ride, eventually, will come to an end. This has to give guys like Keith Richards, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, and all the other high functioning mutants out there pause. It took 81 years of heartbreak and hard drinking to put him down, but Friday in Nashville he left this mortal world.
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