Customer Reviews

Hits I Missed & One I Didn't

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With this CD, we hear a lot of songs from George that he had first shot at recording but turned down. It's interesting hearing George sing songs that others had hits with...well, what i mean is, the concept-hook of this CD is listening to songs that became hits for others. I love all the songs on this CD...the stand-out for me is his duet with Dolly Parton on "The Blues Man". "Skip a Rope" and "Busted" are surprises. I love his take on Vern Gosdin's "If You're Gonna Do Me Wrong" plus "Too Cold At Home", a hit for Mark Chesnutt in the early '90s. We also hear George doing his version of Alan Jackson's "Here In The Real World"!! The highlight of the CD is listening to his re-recording of "He Stopped Loving Her Today", which is 25 years old this year {he had a hit with it in 1980}. "Today I Started Loving You Again" and "On the Other Hand" are also great!! I didn't know George was pitched hardly any of these songs before!! It's mind boggling thinking of all the songs George turned down in his career!! The CD opens up with Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away" and then glides into Bobby Bare's hit, "Detroit City". The 12 songs are all wonderful and it's eerie to realize that George is 74 years old and STILL able to create one of kind vocal performances of these songs!!

Enough has been said about George Jones as a singer. In summary: you can't say enough about George Jones as a singer. He has the ability to truly inhabit a lyric, to bring it to life without getting in its way. He has been called the greatest country singer alive, and rightly so.

What's surprising here, then, is not so much Jones' performance as the way in which he sheds new light on the material itself. I've heard Vern Gosdin's "If You're Gonna Do Me Wrong" a hundred times, but hearing Jones' version of the song is still a revelation. Slight changes in phrasing and the very experience of hearing it done by someone else (after ninety-nine times, you start taking Gosdin's version for granted) challenge us to reexamine the songs and appreciate them in new ways.

The selection of material here is stellar. Covers of songs famously performed by Randy Travis, Mark Chesnutt, Merle Haggard, Alan Jackson, Johnny Rodriguez, and others remain faithful to the originals. For those of us who heard these songs the first time around, this plays like a tribute to classic country songs... which is not to say oldies - "On the Other Hand" holds up admirably beside "Today I Started Loving You Again." The cover songs here probably won't unseat any of the original classic performances, but the album is enjoyable from beginning to end and it serves as a nice reminder of what real country music sounds like - before Nashville became more interested in bubble gum, soccer moms, sippy cups, and pop instrumentation.

When lyrical eloquence and emotional depth mattered and a guy like the Possum could be heard on country radio.

Those were the days.

I think this is without a doubt one of the best cd's The Possum has ever recorded and I have listened to him all my life and he is without a doubt the greatest singer ever and it's sad that he is getting up there in age and probably will be winding down his great career soon and it's also sad that most radio stations will not play him or any of the greats like Hag and Waylon. On some of the songs on this cd you can tell his voice is cracking a little but it's still George at his best. I have said it a million times he could sing the phone book and I would buy it. I have not took this cd out of my player since I bought it. Thats how great it is. That's how great of a singer he is....

If you truly love the way George Jones sings I think you will love this album. It is fascinating to hear him work his way through these great songs with all of his pure grit and somewhat diminished range. His ability to sing a song is still haunting. I think any fan of George Jones has to have this album.

This is a very good album. I loved the original versions when they were new but back then they were getting a lot of radio play, which is to say to much play and I grew tired of them. It is great to hear a new take on these great songs. Mr. Jones does a great job of making these songs his own. All of the songs are good but my favorite is "Blues Man" with Dolly Parton, I think both Hank's would be proud of this version. I also like his new version of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" I think that it better than his original. Quite an acomplishment, from an already very acomplished artist.

It,s George Jones. The man. The guy EVERY other singer wishes they sang like. If you don't believe that just ask any of them. So go get the cd and listen to how all of these songs SHOULD have sounded.

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed initially when I saw the song lineup for this CD (most of the songs are so familiar, and the recent decline in Jones' voice had me worried he wouldn't pull it off). I'm really happy to say that I was wrong! This is an excellent disc. George may not be in his prime, but he rivals Chesnutt on "Too cold at home", at least equals Alan on "Here in the real world", and does great versions of "Blues man" (great performance!)and "Funny how time slips away" and "Detroit city". He certainly bests the original of "Skip a rope". I'll still give Hag the nod on "Today I started loving you again", Randy on "On the other hand", Vern on "If you're gonna do me wrong" and Rodriguez on "Pass me by", but Jones does good versions of every song. "Busted" is excellent, and even the re-recording of "He stopped loving her today" is real good (and leaves out the strings from the original). 50 years after "Why, baby, why" it's amazing how good he still sounds. God bless George Jones, and buy this CD! (Note; One major complaint - the sound on this disc is awful! The vocals distort frequently, and this is easily the worst recorded new disc I can remember buying. Turn down the meters, guys, didn't you even play this back before you put it out?!).

This album is another classic from the greatest country music singer of all time. All of the songs are ones George had the chance to, but didn't record earlier in his career; except of course for the hit "He Stopped Loving Her Today." It is amazing how a 74 year old can still sing that great. "The Blues Man" featuring Dolly Parton is outstanding, much better then the previous times it was released by Alan Jackson and Hank Williams Jr. Sadly, none of these songs will be played on the radio, because country just isnt country anymore. As everyone knows country music is now about a singers image instead of their talent and voice. George Jones is the greatest regardless how many records he now sells or how many times you hear him on the radio.

Typical George Jones and classic country. Songs like these will keep him at the top for me.

As a big George Jones fan, I resisted buying this one--feeling it sounded too gimmicky. Amazon reviewers persuaded me that I NEEDED to have George's latest....Just got it. WOW: A Fantastic album...He never sounded better. Detroit City and Blues Man are first-rate, world-class! The amazing thing is how much these classics by other artists become George's once he takes them on! (When other artists sing George Jones songs, you keep "hearing" Jones....When Jones sings other artists songs, you hear....JONES!)