The Grand Tour

February 29, 2016
Kienzle (Southwest Shuffle) conducts a dazzling, somber, often sad, but always candid tour of the legendary life and award-winning music of George Jones. Drawing deeply on interviews with Jones's friends, family members, and fellow musicians, as well as archival records, Kienzle delivers a cracking good story of the singer whose visceral interpretations of songs not only won him awards but earned him nicknames like "the Rolls-Royce of country singers." Kienzle traces Jones's Texas childhood as the son of a hard-drinking, music-loving father and a deeply religious mother, his early days on Starday Records, and his three marriagesâincluding his marriage to Nancy Ford Sepulvado, who in many ways saved his life and his career, and his tumultuous relationship with Tammy Wynette. The book also covers his struggle with alcoholism, which led to his infamous string of canceled appearances (leading to the nickname "No-Show Jones") as well as his legendary trip on his lawn mower from his house to the local liquor store. Kienzle weaves stories about Jones's songs with stories of Jones's life, creating a richly colorful tapestry. This moving biography keeps Jones's voice alive and underscores his central role in American music history. Agent: David Dunton, Harvey Klinger.

March 1, 2016

Considered one of the greatest country songs of all time, "He Stopped Loving Her Today" would become George Jones's (1931-2013) signature song and come to encapsulate his persona: a deeply tragic figure with a love and exuberance for life. Kienzle (Southwest Shuffle: Pioneers of Honky-Tonk, Western Swing, and Country Jazz) tells the story of this poverty-stricken, East Texas-raised crooner, whose rise to the top of the country music charts was followed by an equally precipitous descent into drugs, alcohol, and depression. Written chronologically, the biography follows Jones from his upbringing in Beaumont through his tumultuous marriage with singer Tammy Wynette and to the final decade of his life. As a biographer, Kienzle underscores the intersections between Jones's professional and personal life, within the context of his abusive childhood. Through this lens, Jones's discography of joyful and melancholy songs often reflected, obscured, criticized, and contradicted the personal experience of its singer. VERDICT Juxtaposed with Jones's 1996 autobiography, I Lived To Tell It All, and last year's account by his longtime songwriting collaborators Charlene & Peanutt Montgomery, The Legend of George Jones: His Life and Death, this latest addition is perhaps the most honest portrayal of one of music's most controversial figures.--Joshua Finnell, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2016
A solid, incisive biography of the last singer universally acknowledged as the greatest in country music. It's to Kienzle's (Southwest Shuffle: Pioneers of Honky Tonk, Western Swing, and Country Jazz, 2003, etc.) credit that he neither downplays his subject's notorious personal life nor allows it to overshadow the soulful majesty of his music. A veteran country-music journalist and historian, the author maintains that "Jones's life and music are inseparable" and that the demons he battled--alcohol, cocaine, marital discord--were inextricable from the depths of emotion he plumbed through his unique timbre and phrasing. From Johnny Cash to Buck Owens, other masters of country music acknowledged that Jones had no peer as a country singer among the generations that followed Hank Williams, whom Jones initially did his best to imitate. Said Pappy Daily, who managed and nominally produced Jones through his early ascent, "George, you've sung like Roy Acuff, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams, and Bill Monroe. Can you sing like George Jones?" Once he developed his signature style--twisting a single syllable into three or four while retaining his raw, pure country essence--everyone in Nashville celebrated his artistry as the gold standard. Yet they also assumed that he would follow his idol Williams into an early grave and that loving this sincere and honest man meant having to forgive what a mean drunk and undependable performer he was. Even when he showed up, "No Show Jones" might not be able to stand up. His marriage to Tammy Wynette was pretty much a train wreck, though it elevated the profiles of both. In chronicling the rise, fall, and ultimate salvation of Jones, Kienzle relies more on secondary sources and archival material than on original reporting. With all the credit he gives Nancy Sepulvado Jones for saving her husband's life as well as his career, it's a shame the author never interviewed her. But as a straightforward, chronological celebration of the life of an American master, the biography gives Jones his due. The expanding country bookshelf has another welcome addition.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.