George Jones died yesterday. I’ve been listening obsessively to his songs, re-living the brief time I spent with him, his concert (always torturous, uncomfortable and oddly cathartic affairs), the hours spent crawling into his voice.
Death was Jones’ constant theme, it’s what he sang about, lived, he was a man transparent in his pain and confusion and failure, especially his failure, so it’s odd that his body finally disintegrated and we’re left with memories and his voice. He was the greatest country music singer, one of the great blues singers – haunted by his own failure. Eugene O’Neill, four Pulitzers and a Nobel, the father of U.S. drama, died in a Boston hotel room haunted by his own failure, probably his greatest was that he couldn’t find the strength to kill himself. Jones, a testimony to how much abuse the body can withstand, lived to 81.
Both battled the great demon alcohol with dramatic flair and became dry drunks to survive. Gene retreated into the pain of the betrayal and cruelty of life, sequestered at Tao House to pen his final masterpieces, Jones accepted that his singing made people grateful for their pain, and they loved him for it, and he took to the stage, where he was most comfortable. Jones didn’t gloss it over. You look at him singing sometimes and you see an Apostle offering himself up for public torture and humiliation. Gene O’Neill is the Patron Saint of Suffering for playwrights. You look at his cragged face blatantly mocking: You think you’ve gone deep? You think you’ve suffered for your art? Ha!






