{"product_id":"george-jones-the-life-and-times-of-a-honky-tonk-legend-updated-edition","title":"George Jones — The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Legend: Updated Edition","description":"\u003cp\u003eGeorge Jones's nearly 60-year recording and performing career has had a profound influence on modern country music and influenced a younger generation of singers, including Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, Tim McGraw, and Trace Adkins. As Merle Haggard said of Jones in \u003ci\u003eRolling Stone\u003c\/i\u003e magazine, “His voice was like a Stradivarius violin: one of the greatest instruments ever made.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJones's saga is a larger-than-life tale of rags to riches and back to rags again. He was born into near poverty in a backwater patch of East Texas. His formal education ended early; by his early teens, he was singing on the streets of Beaumont, Texas, for tips. After beginning to record in the mid-1950s Jones became, by sheer dint of his vocal prowess, one of Nashville's most celebrated honky-tonk singers. But from the start, Jones's life, as often reflected in his music, was shaped by misdirection, chaos, turmoil, and emotional strife aggravated by a ferocious appetite for alcohol. Fame and adulation seemed to merely intensify his personal travails.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJones's story has a relatively happy ending. With the help of fourth wife Nancy during the final decade and a half of his life, he got clean and sober, was feted as a much-revered elder statesman for the music, and, by most accounts, found peace of mind at long last.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Backbeat Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53478714310974,"sku":"00122446","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0695\/1396\/9982\/files\/00122446-wl.jpg?v=1778689009","url":"https:\/\/themusiciansclub.net\/products\/george-jones-the-life-and-times-of-a-honky-tonk-legend-updated-edition","provider":"The Musicians Club","version":"1.0","type":"link"}