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George Jones’ Former Booking Agent Says You Could Always Tell How “Messed Up” He Was By His Hair: “He Would Use A Whole Can Of Hairspray”
That’s a lot of hairspray.
Of course, I think we’ve all heard the stories about George Jones’ wild days, like how he took his lawnmower to the liquor store after his wife hid the keys to his car to keep him from drinking… that one’s legendary.
One of the unique challenges was the fact that, when George drank, his “multiple personalities” would come out, which included a Donald Duck-like character called “DeeDoodle” and “The Old Man,” which was based on the old movie star Walter Brennan. Apparently, excessive drug used forced some kind of psychotic breakdown in the country singers mind, to the point where he developed a multiple personality disorder and those aforementioned characters.
He was infamously known as “No Show Jones” because of how often he would miss concerts due to his alcoholism, and it was something he struggled with for many, many years.
And apparently, there was a tell-tale sign when he had been drinking, as Wayne Oliver, Jones’ former booking agent, recalled during an episode of Mike Judge’s Tales From The Tour Bus.
Oliver started working for George and his country star wife, Tammy Wynette, when he was just 20-years-old, and he recalled that, when George was “messed up,” his hair would be everywhere and look like a mess. When he wasn’t, Oliver says Jones would use an entire can of hairspray to get it just right:
“You knew he was messed up when he didn’t have that hair sprayed down. That hair would get all over his face, I mean, everywhere. But when he was straight, he was so particular, he would use a whole can of hairspray. It would be so stiff, I said, ‘George, a bug couldn’t even fly on your head.'”
He then told a story about one of Jones’ no-shows, when they were supposed to be flying from Washington, D.C. to Logan, Ohio… and that’s not what ended up happening:
“We were playing up in Washington, D.C., and we were headed to Logan, Ohio, and I said, ‘George, let’s go. Let’s go to the hotel and spend the night and fly in in the morning.’ He said, ‘No, I wanna ride the bus.’ I said, ‘Uh oh.’ When he said he wanted to ride the bus, and then fly, I knew something was going on.
So I told the bus driver and the band, I said, ‘Don’t let him off the bus so you get to Logan, Ohio.’ So the next morning, all the band members were standing around the bus, I said. ‘What’s wrong?’ They said ‘George is gone.’ I said, ‘What?’ They said, ‘Yeah, we woke up and he was gone.’ I said, ‘S***, we got this show out here and it’s gonna be 25 to 30,000 people.’
They said, ‘Well, he was walking down way. So I went down there walking, and I saw two little ladies out in the front yard. And I said, ‘Ma’am, have y’all seen George Jones?’ She said, ‘Well, he just left. Nicest man in the world. In fact, we had two bottles of wine.'”
They women told Oliver that Jones had left about an hour prior to go to the cab station, and he had caught a ride back to Nashville and was long gone by then. Of course, this was back before cell phones, so there was no way for anyone to get in contact with him and track him down:
And I said ‘What?’ She said ‘Yeah, he come by and he was thirsty. And I said, ‘Can you tell me where he went?’ She said ‘Well, he was gonna go right down here to the cab stand.’
I said, Thank you very much.’ So I went down there and they said, ‘George got in the cab about an hour ago, said he’s headed to Nashville.’ I said, ‘Holy s***, George is gone. I don’t know what we’re gonna do.’ and those people had been out there all day, drinking.
And we had seen some pretty nice fights. I said look, we got a little problem. I said, ‘George is gone.'”
I can only imagine what Oliver put up with trying to keep Jones in line for all those years, but he sure does have some wild, and legendary, stories to tell about it as a result… you can watch the clip here:
@therustypitchfork #talesfromthetourbus #georgejones #mikejudge ♬ original sound – Jon Cunningham
The post George Jones’ Former Booking Agent Says You Could Always Tell How “Messed Up” He Was By His Hair: “He Would Use A Whole Can Of Hairspray” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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