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A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette
by Tyler Mahan Coe
From the creator of the acclaimed country music history podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones, comes the epic American saga of country music's legendary royal couple—George Jones and Tammy Wynette.
By the early 1960s nearly everybody paying attention to country music agreed that George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After taking honky-tonk rockers like "White Lightning" all the way up the country charts, he revealed himself to be an unmatched virtuoso on "She Thinks I Still Care," thus cementing his status as a living legend. That's where the trouble started. Only at this new level of fame did Jones realize he suffered from extreme stage fright. His method of dealing with that involved great quantities of alcohol, which his audience soon discovered as Jones more often than not showed up to concerts falling-down drunk or failed to show up at all. But the fans always forgave him because he just kept singing so damn good. Then he got married to Tammy Wynette right around the time she became one of the most famous women alive with the release of "Stand by Your Man."
Tammy Wynette grew up believing George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After deciding to become a country singer herself, she went to Nashville, got a record deal, then met and married her hero. With the pop crossover success of "Stand by Your Man" (and the international political drama surrounding the song's lyrics) came a gigantic audience, who were sold a fairy tale image of a couple soon being called The King and Queen of Country Music. Many fans still believe that fairy tale today. The behind-the-scenes truth is very different from the images shown on album covers.
"A gifted storyteller with vast cultural knowledge, Coe has given readers not just a map, but a true treasure." —Kirkus Reviews
"Coe aims to put Wynette and Jones's story in the context of larger shifts within country music, such as the development of a pop-inflected 'Nashville Sound,' but tangents on moonshine, bullfighting, and other far-flung topics fail to enrich the narrative. Readers will be frustrated." —Publishers Weekly
"[Tyler] is both a storyteller and a tenacious reporter, and he cuts through myth and hype in order to find truth and beauty and danger and other things that are at the heart of this music. He doesn't glad-hand or favor trade. He's after the real deal and won't stop until he lands on it, until he conveys it to all of us in ways that haven't been approached in the past. His show's enormous success is proof that country music's characters and history have relevance today." —Kyle Young, CEO, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
This information about Cocaine and Rhinestones was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tyler Mahan Coe is the host, writer, and producer of the podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones: The History of Country Music. Within a year of debut the program's first season rose from country fan favorite to international phenomenon, becoming the #1 music podcast on Apple's charts in the US and UK simultaneously. The show remains an independent, one-man operation. A former touring guitarist, Tyler lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
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