I babysat my one year old niece tonight for the first time--it was a mostly amazing roller coaster ride. I put her down after letting her stay up a little late to hang out with her "Brunka," and then I began to mine my brother and sister-in-law's record collection. Man, do they have some cool stuff. The old, obscure country collections on vinyl made me go mostly straight for the George Jones songs--what a damn living legend he was.
I thought of a Fresh Air interview I often think of (for various aspects) where Terry Gross interviews Bobby Braddock, author of Jones' masterpiece "He Stopped Loving Her Today." Braddock also wrote Toby Kieth's "I Wanna Talk About Me." He notes in this interview that Kieth's bastard country-rap song probably sold more copies than Jones' hit. That pretty much stuns me. Here's the audio of the interview: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=129550239&m=129551501 --it does shine some light on the whole axis between the two songs. A truly great interview.
And when he crossed over the other day, Fresh Air memorially released a bit of Terry's 1996 interview with Jones himself: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=179252922&m=179021335.
That's how it is done. R.I.P. Ol Possum, you'd a most admirable run, Sir.
That's how it is done. R.I.P. Ol Possum, you'd a most admirable run, Sir.
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