George's Gems

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"The Honky Tonk Downstairs" (Track 22, "Don't Stop the Music" Ace Records, 1987) Play a selection of the song here

Sometimes the greatest pleasures come from the most unexpected places. In this case, it's England, where Ace Records, an obscure repackager of American music, decided for some reason in the late '80s to put out this compilation of George Jones' early material (most of their other stuff is rhythm and blues). If they paid for the rights at all, they must have got them cheap, because none of the tunes are particularly well known. For the seeker of hidden Jones gems, of course, this is catnip. And there are several, including this treasure. Recorded in 1961, it was written by Dallas Frazier, the Bakersfield cotton picker turned songwriter ("There Goes My Everything," "The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp") who is one of Jones' favorites. (Later in the '60s he would record an album of Frazier tunes.)

Why George Jones? Matt Diebel explains here.

Past Gems:
'Once a Day'
'When Your House Is Not a Home
'Three's a Crowd'
'Mr. Fool'

This is one of those songs that, through its lyrics and melody, immediately transports you to the place where you imagine the singer to be. It couldn't fit the Possum better. You see Jones slumped over a table in a seedy apartment above an equally seedy bar in some Texas downtown. With one hand on his brow and the other on a bottle of cheap whiskey, he laments his aching for alcohol and the pressure and embarrassment this dependency has placed on his wife, who slings drinks in the aforementioned watering hole.

The chorus has to be one of the most powerfully sad in country music:

"It's a shame she wears the name
Of a man that's locked and chained
To a bottle that's destroyed all hopes and cares
To the men with hungry eyes
She works and hides her pride
She's a barmaid in the honky tonk downstairs."

Jones, of course, milks it for all it's worth, the whole thing made doubly poignant by his own history with Jack Daniels and friends. His voice has, even for him, an unusual sense of hopelessness, aided, as usual, by exquisite phrasing and emphasis. The spare backing, orchestrated by his discoverer and first producer, Pappy Daily, opens with a lone, lonely fiddle, but is otherwise somewhat jaunty, which serves to highlight the plight of the couple involved.

I have yet to come across the "George Jones Sings Dallas Frazier" album, but I look forward to the day when I do. (Frazier also wrote "Say It's Not You," one of my all-time Jones favorites.) Meanwhile, this Ace import still remains available at your favorite Internet outlet. I recommend it.