The Grand Tour by Rich Kienzle

Author:Rich Kienzle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

IN NASHVILLE, GEORGE RAN OUT THE MUSICOR CLOCK, RERECORDING MATERIAL from Mercury and UA, even remaking songs he’d previously recorded for Musicor and laying down covers of others’ hits. Among them: Merle Haggard’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me,” Billy “Crash” Craddock’s “Knock Three Times,” and Conway Twitty’s “Hello, Darlin’.” One October session brought the relationship to an end. Repeating the drill where he sold Starday to Don Pierce, Pappy sold his Musicor interests to Art Talmadge, who released one final compilation of George and Melba duets before finding another label willing to license George’s Musicor material. The January 15, 1972, Billboard reported Talmadge turning over 230 released master recordings and 58 unreleased masters to RCA Victor for upcoming singles and releases in a three-year deal. Pappy was to select material, but by then was refocusing on his Texas music interests. Musicor would concentrate on other acts. RCA released sixteen newly compiled Jones albums over the life of the contract. But in a market still flooded with recent Musicor releases, plus the new music George and Tammy were creating at Epic, the RCA material never made any significant dent, except to add some Jones to RCA’s catalog for a few years.

Epic released the George and Tammy duet album We Go Together in November 1971. In early 1972, “Take Me” became their first Top 10 duet. George’s first Epic solo single, “We Can Make It,” by Sherrill and Glenn Sutton, was recorded in January. Released by Epic barely a month later, it entered the Top 10. The follow-up, “Loving You Could Never Be Better,” written by Peanutt Montgomery, his wife, Charlene, and Betty Tate, gave George his greatest chart success (No. 2 on Billboard) since “A Good Year for the Roses” in 1970. Those songs, plus covers of Charley Pride’s “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’” and Rex Griffin’s 1930’s suicidal musing “The Last Letter,” were included on George’s first solo Epic album, simply titled George Jones, which arrived in May.

1972 was a presidential election year. For decades, country stars choosing to get involved in politics (except for staunch Republican Roy Acuff) took the Democratic side, the result of a firm belief that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s programs saved poor rural southerners during the Great Depression. One exception: Arizona-born Marty Robbins, an outspoken supporter of conservative Republican Arizona senator Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential candidacy. The Democratic mind-set began changing in the sixties as rural white southerners and some blue-collar northerners grew angry at Democratic support of civil rights legislation. In 1963, Alabama governor George Wallace, Democrat and avowed segregationist, symbolically stood at the door of the University of Alabama to prevent admission of black students, defying federally mandated desegregation. After a carefully orchestrated face-off with a deputy US attorney general, Wallace stepped aside. Vilified as a blatant racist, Wallace let his feisty, banty-rooster style and colorful personality keep his profile high.

Wallace ran for president in 1968 under the banner of the American Independent Party. His flag-waving, raucous rallies were well attended by blue-collar workers in the South, and, to the surprise of many, in working-class cities of the North.

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