George Jones: Wine Colored Roses : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

This is the finest George Jones record in more than five years. Still working with producer-arranger Billy Sherrill, Jones commands a mix of ten songs that range in quality from fair to excellent. The clear melodies and the down-home glide of Sherrill's surprisingly appropriate settings provide an opportunity for Jones to sing one of his great albums. And while only a few songs might compete with the honky-tonk anthems on I Am What I Am or Still the Same Ole Me – essential Joneses of the Eighties (along with his Anniversary collection) – Wine Colored Roses achieves a new consistency. In 1986, no traditional C&W singer made a record with fewer weak moments.

Styles vary: On the intensely devotional "I Turn to You" and the poignant wino tale of the title, Jones puts first-rate ballads right into the unique orbit he's perfected. On the wryly insulting "Don't Leave Without Taking Your Silver" and "The Right Left Hand," the tempos and the underlying Texan rhythms pick up, and Jones reaches for the sky. Stepping out on "The Very Best of Me," a footloose jaunt, Jones decides to leave his lips to Jack Daniel's, his ears to jukeboxes and his backside to his ex-wife.

On side two, Jones and Patti Page take a piece of pop fluff called "You Never Looked That Good When You Were Mine" through the roof, then Jones breezes through "If Only Your Eyes Could Lie," a Nashville-Caribbean tune he brings home with the regret of a downtrodden honky-tonker. "These Old Eyes Have Seen It All," Jones declares at the end of this dudless album, and one only has to listen closely to know that it's the truth.