Born in Texas, Jones first heard country music when he was seven, and was given a guitar at the age of nine. He married his first wife, Dorothy Bonvillion, in 1950, and was divorced in 1951. He served in the United States Marine Corps and was discharged in 1953. He married Shirley Ann Corley in 1954. In 1959, Jones recorded "White Lightning", written by J. P. Richardson, which launched his career as a singer. His second marriage ended in divorce in 1968; he married fellow country music singer Tammy Wynette a year later. Years of alcoholism compromised his health and led to his missing many performances, earning him the nickname "No Show Jones". After his divorce from Wynette in 1975, Jones married his fourth wife, Nancy Sepulvado, in 1983 and became sober for good in 1999. Jones died in 2013, aged 81, from hypoxic respiratory failure.
George Jones has been called "The Rolls Royce Of Country Music" and had more than 160 chart singles to his name from 1955 until his death in 2013. Johnny Cash once said, "When people ask me who my favorite country singer is, I say, 'You mean besides George Jones?'"
Jones tirelessly defended the integrity of country music, telling Billboard in 2006, "It's never been for love of money. I thank God for it because it makes me a living. But I sing because I love it, not because of the dollar signs." Jones also went out of his way to promote younger country singers that he felt were as passionate about the music as he was. "Everybody knows he's a great singer," Alan Jackson stated in 1995, "but what I like most about George is that when you meet him, he is like some old guy that works down at the gas station...even though he's a legend!"
Shortly after Jones' death, Andrew Mueller wrote about his influence in Uncut, "He was one of the finest interpretive singers who ever lifted a microphone...There cannot be a single country songwriter of the last 50-odd years who has not wondered what it might be like to hear their words sung by that voice." In an article for The Texas Monthly in 1994, Nick Tosches eloquently described the singer's vocal style: "While he and his idol, Hank Williams, have both affected generations with a plaintive veracity of voice that has set them apart, Jones has an additional gift—a voice of exceptional range, natural elegance, and lucent tone. Gliding toward high tenor, plunging toward deep bass, the magisterial portamento of his onward-coursing baritone emits white-hot sparks and torrents of blue, investing his poison love songs with a tragic gravity and inflaming his celebrations of the honky-tonk ethos with the hellfire of abandon." In the New Republic essay "Why George Jones ranks with Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday," David Hajdu writes:
"Jones had a handsome and strange voice. His singing was always partly about the appeal of the tones he produced, regardless of the meaning of the words. In this sense, Jones had something in common with singers of formal music and opera, though his means of vocal production were radically different from theirs. He sang from the back of his throat, rather than from deep in his diaphragm. He tightened his larynx to squeeze sound out. He clenched his jaw, instead of wriggling it free. He forced wind through his teeth, and the notes sounded weirdly beautiful."
David Cantwell recalled in 2013, "His approach to singing, he told me once, was to call up those memories and feelings of his own that most closely corresponded to those being felt by the character in whatever song he was performing. He was a kind of singing method actor, creating an illusion of the real." In the liner notes to Essential George Jones: The Spirit of Country Rich Kienzle states, "Jones sings of people and stories that are achingly human. He can turn a ballad into a catharsis by wringing every possible emotion from it, making it a primal, strangled cry of anguish". In 1994, country music historian Colin Escott pronounced, "Contemporary country music is virtually founded on reverence for George Jones. Walk through a room of country singers and conduct a quick poll, George nearly always tops it." In the wake of Jones's death, Merle Haggard pronounced in Rolling Stone, "His voice was like a Stradivarius violin: one of the greatest instruments ever made." Emmylou Harris wrote, "when you hear George Jones sing, you are hearing a man who takes a song and makes it a work of art - always," a quote that appeared on the sleeve of Jones' 1976 album The Battle. In the documentary Same Ole Me, several country music stars offer similar thoughts. Randy Travis: "It sounds like he's lived every minute of every word that he sings and there's very few people who can do that"; Tom T. Hall: "It was always Jones who got the message across just right"; and Roy Acuff: "I'd give anything if I could sing like George Jones". In the same film, producer Billy Sherrill states, "All I did was change the instrumentation around him. I don't think he's changed at all."
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed George Jones among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Take Me Back to Tulsa
George Jones Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Stole my heart away from me down in Louisiana
Take me back to Tulsa I'm too young to marry
Take me back to Tulsa I'm too young to marry
[ steel ]
Little bee sucks the blossom big bee gives the honey
Dark man raise the cotton white man gets the money
Take me back to Tulsa...
Walk and talk to Suzy walk and talk to Suzy
Walk and talk to Suzy walk and talk to Suzy
We always wear a great big smile we never do look sour
Travel all over the country playing by the hour
Take me back to Tulsa...
The lyrics to "Take Me Back to Tulsa" by George Jones paint a picture of a young man who is smitten with a girl named Dinah, but has had his heart stolen away from him. He longs to return to Tulsa, as he feels he is too young to settle down with Dinah in Louisiana. He reminisces about the simple life of a bee, where the little bee sucks the blossom and the big bee gives the honey, and the harsh reality of the power dynamic in cotton farming, where the dark man raises the cotton but the white man gets the money. The lyrics then transition to a joyful scene of walking and talking with Suzy, as the band travels throughout the country playing music by the hour.
The lyrics of this song capture the spirit of a young man who is still figuring out his place in life and trying to find his way. The character is not ready to settle down and commit to a relationship, and instead longs for the freedom and excitement of life on the road. He is drawn to the simplicity of nature, but also acutely aware of the complex social and economic dynamics that shape his world. Through it all, he finds joy in his music and the people he shares it with, and hopes to continue touring and exploring the country for years to come.
Line by Line Meaning
Where's that gal with the red dress on some folks called her Dinah
Who is that woman in the red dress that some people refer to as Dinah?
Stole my heart away from me down in Louisiana
She took my heart when we met in Louisiana.
Take me back to Tulsa I'm too young to marry
I want to go back to Tulsa because I am not ready to get married yet.
Take me back to Tulsa I'm too young to marry
I am repeating my desire to return to Tulsa because I am too young to settle down.
[ steel ]
Instrumental
Little bee sucks the blossom big bee gives the honey
The small bee collects nectar while the large bee produces honey.
Dark man raise the cotton white man gets the money
The black man works hard to grow and produce cotton, but it is the white man who profits from it.
Take me back to Tulsa...
Repetition of the previous chorus
[ fiddle ]
Instrumental
Walk and talk to Suzy walk and talk to Suzy
I want to speak with Suzy and have a conversation with her.
Walk and talk to Suzy walk and talk to Suzy
I am repeating my desire to talk with Suzy.
We always wear a great big smile we never do look sour
We are always happy and smiling, and never have a negative attitude.
Travel all over the country playing by the hour
We travel all over the land playing music for hours at a time.
Take me back to Tulsa...
Repetition of the chorus one last time.
Lyrics © Peermusic Publishing
Written by: Bob Wills, Tommy Duncan
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind