I Lived to Tell It All by George Jones

Author:George Jones [Jones, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780804180863
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-10-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

I opened my second Possum Holler club the day my divorce from Tammy was granted.

The divorce had triggered my renewed drinking, and I drank during the entire day it was granted. Everyone predicted I would miss the grand opening, a gathering of the most important music industry people in Nashville. I fooled folks by showing up and even more by performing.

It had rained all day before the opening. Streets were flooded throughout Nashville. Everybody thought the first-night festivities would be a flop. But so many folks turned out you couldn’t have stirred them with a stick.

A lot of country stars were on hand, and they jumped onstage. The club, located in historic Printers Alley, the hotbed of Nashville tourism during the 1970s, had the spirit of the Possum Holler of a few years earlier.

And its layout was very clever. A VIP Lounge was built at the same level as the stage. That meant that if a celebrity was sitting in the lounge he or she had to do nothing but take a few steps in order to be onstage. The stars usually sat together, so it was tempting for several to make their way to the stage after the first one broke the ice. Once again I had a place whose customers were the Who’s Who of Nashville entertainers.

I didn’t actually own it. Once again I simply put my name on it and was supposed to be paid for that.

As so often has been the case in my life, I didn’t get my money. People have asked why I haven’t hired people through the years to handle my money. I have. And some of the handlers turned out to be some of the biggest thieves. I don’t have the greatest financial mind myself.

The new Possum Holler was intended to be a place where my band could perform on the nights we weren’t working the road. That was a lot of nights.

I missed more personal engagements than I kept from 1975 through 1980. The nickname “No Show Jones” really became solid. I now go along in stride with my old reputation, which I’ll never live down in some folks’ minds.

Today I own several cars and trucks for Nancy, my staff, and me. Each has a license plate that reads NOSHOW 1 or NOSHOW 2 and so forth. A lot of country stars put their names on their touring bus. Not me. I simply have NO SHOW on the front of mine. Traffic directors at my concerts always know it’s my bus, and I’m waved right through.

Most of my concert promoters and disappointed fans in the middle to late 1970s blamed my absence on alcohol, and they were right. I had drunk heavily for years and had pitched benders that might last two or three days. But in the 1970s I was drunk the majority of the time for half a decade. If you saw me sober, chances are you saw me asleep. It was a five-year binge laced with occasional sickness from sobriety.

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