George Jones: Bartender's Blues : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The reason for the existence of George Jones' Bartender's Blues is a puzzlement. The title track, written by James Taylor (and on which Taylor sings backup vocals), is nice enough, but came out as a single last year. Also, since the long-awaited "George Jones Sings with Famous People" album–duets with Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, et al.–is supposed to reach the stores this fall, the current LP will very likely get lost in the shuffle.

In the ordinary course of events, that would be fine. The new record is little more than trivia. On the other hand, Jones manages to release just about the best trivia around these days. Bartender's Blues, for example, contains the world's first George Jones disco tune. As if that weren't enough, the album includes the most explicit S&M song I've heard in quite some time. In the hands of any other performer, numbers like these would merely be silly, but with Jones and his emotion-charged voice, you're never able to tell whether he's joking or whether he might really mean it.

Who else could–or would–sing lines like these from "Leaving Love All over the Place": "The lady at the roomin' house served our eviction notice yesterday ... /She said it'd take a dozen carpenters to fix the broken bed and drapes/But we just never learned to love without leavin' love all over the place"? Sounds stupid, right? Well, I won't reveal the song's surprise ending, but the way Jones sings it, it's halfway scary.

The rest of the LP isn't quite as scandalous, though the disco song, "I Ain't Got No Business Doin' Business Today," does show why that genre requires so little singing skill. Jones' voice, famous for its swoops and slides from baritone to tenor in a single breath, is too confined by the beat to do much more than keep up. (To his credit, he does add some rather nice snarls and squeals.)

Elsewhere, producer Billy Sherrill tries Jones out in front of a Waylon Jennings bass beat, a heavenly chorus of backup singers and plain, country-hoedown rhythms. Sherrill's problem is that you just can't force Jones into any style except his own, here best exemplified by "If You Loved a Liar (You'd Hug My Neck)." Listen to Jones sing the line, "If you loved a liar, darlin'," swooping from "liar" to "darlin'" in one breath. For Mr. Sherrill's information, that is what George Jones should sound like.

Meanwhile, Bartender's Blues may be of interest only to George Jones fans. But, for them, it's a must.