All language subtitles for Tales From the Tour Bus - 01x03 - George Jones and Tammy Wynette Part 1.WEB-DL.English.HI.C.updated.Addic7ed.com

(country music plays)

George Jones.
It's a pretty ordinary name

for a guy whose life and talent
were anything but ordinary.

It wasn't just the country
music world that loved George.

Frank Sinatra once called him the
second best singer in the world,

and James Taylor and Elvis Costello
both liked George Jones so much,

they each wrote songs for him.

Now, whether you're
a country music fan or not,

that kind of respect
deserves attention.

("Take Me" plays)

♪ Take me ♪

♪ Take me to your darkest room ♪

♪ Close every window
and bolt every door ♪

♪ The very first moment
I heard your voice ♪

♪ I'd be in darkness no more ♪

"Take Me" was the first song George and
Tammy Wynette released as a single...

♪ Barren dessert ♪

...the first in a long
string of hit songs

they recorded together
as husband and wife.

♪ The very first moment
I saw your smile ♪

♪ It would be like heaven to me ♪

Even after they split up, they kept on
singing together, which makes sense.

They had every chance to kill
each other as husband and wife,

and each of them took a
stab at it at least once.

(theme music playing)

George Jones named his
backing band The Jones Boys.

They were actually real brothers...

Don, Gary, and Arnie Adams...

and they spent more time
on the bus with George

than just about anybody.

We was playing in Bandera,
Texas, one night.

We would open up
for George sometimes...

And he was out in the crowd,

- drinking at the table.
- Thank you very much.

Right now, we'd like to
introduce our boss to you.

We'd like everybody to get together,

- give a great big hand,
- (cheering)

to America's number one
country singer, George Jones.

(country music plays)

Don: - He throwed the whiskey
bottle at me on the bandstand.

- It missed me about that far.
- (bottle shatters)

When we was finally...
got done that night,

well, we just walked off-stage.
What-what, we quit.

Went and started loading
the car and trailer up,

and I heard gravel shuffling behind
me when I was putting stuff in.

And I turned around
and he took a swing,

and I took the trailer door...

- (grunts)
- ...and hit him in the face with it.

- (laughter)
- It knocked him down,

and the sheriff was standing
down there and he said,

"What do you want me
to do with him, Don?"

And I said, "Put him in jail."

(laughter)

So they put him in jail,

and I took his car and went home.

(tires screech)

And he called us and
fired us the next day.

He had fired him four or five
times before that ever happened.

He got be, kind of, like Donald Trump.

(laughter)

Mike: George came from humble
beginnings in Vidor, Texas.

Songwriter Peanutt Montgomery
and his wife, Charlene,

were running buddies
with him for decades.

We were close, uh, as, I guess, buddies

could get, you know.

I'd tell him I loved him,
and he said, "Now, Peanutt,

if we were any closer, we'd be gay."

(laughter)

Charlene: George came
from the Big Thicket.

It's a little community
there in Vidor...

tall pines and everybody there
was like poverty people,

but they didn't know they were poverty,

because everybody lived the same life,

so one had just about
as much as the other.

And in the Thicket, they had
their own little set of rules,

standards, and values,
and they stuck by those.

Mike: Long before the
good people of East Texas

had figured out how to make crystal
meth, they made moonshine,

which was also illegal,

so it stands to reason that
a boy from the Big Thicket

would get his first number-one
hit with a song about moonshine.

♪ Well, a city slicker came,
and he said, "I'm tough ♪

♪ I think I want to taste
that powerful stuff" ♪

♪ He took one slug, and
he drank it on down ♪

♪ I heard him a-moaning
as he hit the ground ♪

♪ Mighty, mighty pleasing,
pappy's corn squeezing ♪

Pshh! (hiccups)
♪ Ooh, White Lightning ♪

Gary: And the way he sang
and phrased his words,

there ain't nobody can
even come close to him.

♪ There ain't nothing in my pocket ♪

♪ But three nickels and a dime ♪

♪ But I'm holding ♪

♪ To the pieces ♪

♪ Of my dream ♪

We got started with George

and couldn't have had a better teacher

as far as the singing and the music,

but, uh, he was such a... a prick

as far as, uh, off-stage, drinking,

- and stuff like that.
- Yeah.

Gary: Paycheck worked for
George four or five times.

Arnie: Him and George
was two of a kind.

We kind of like grew
up together, you know.

Paycheck, he was always drunk,

and him and George fought all the time.

We was riding down to Virginia
or somewhere late at night,

and George and John was
up in the front seat,

and George was driving, and they
got to arguing about something,

because they argued all the time,

and, uh, they started screaming
at each other. (chuckles)

Paycheck said, "Well, just
pull this son of a bitch over.

I'll just whip your ass."

George said, "By God, all right."

Pulled her over, and John jumped out,

- and George took off.
- (guys laugh)

George wasn't no scholar by no means.

We'd talked him into going into the
hospital to dry out in, uh, Alabama.

They did an IQ test on him.

I asked the doctor,
"What was the score?"

He said, "62."

- (guys laugh)
- Where'd that put you?

Well, dumb enough to work for him!

George and I was riding along
on the bus there one time

and we was listening to the radio,

and we heard a song that
Johnny Paycheck had written.

It was called "Apartment Number Nine."

Tammy Wynette:
♪ You'll find me waiting here ♪

♪ In apartment number nine ♪

George said,
"Man, who is that singing?"

And it was young Tammy Wynette,

who nobody'd heard of yet.

Mike: You can see where this is headed.

Scott Kennedy runs a
Tammy Wynette museum,

near the cotton fields where
she grew up in Mississippi.

Scott: Tammy, along with everybody else

in Tremont, Mississippi, picked cotton.

Tammy didn't like to pick cotton,

but she had to.

When she was out there in those fields,

to help pass the time away,
well, she'd start singing,

and it just made the
cotton picking go better.

When she was picking
that cotton down there,

she was just waiting for the day
and designing her costumes,

when she was gonna be
on the stage with her hero,

George Jones, singing hit tunes.

Mike: Janette and her sister,
Nanette, ought to know.

The Smith sisters took turns over
the years doing Tammy's hair,

as well as just about everybody
else's in Nashville.

Jim Nabors.

Ray Charles.

Ah! Gene Kelly.

Jerry Lee Lewis.

Burt Reynolds.

Oh! Reba.

Tammy was born with the
name Virginia Wynette Pugh.

She got married before
she graduated from high school.

I think it was because she felt like

she didn't belong to anybody.

It was pretty well known that
Tammy always loved the boys.

She had to have a man in her life

all of the time,

and she made some of the
worst dadgum choices.

Mike: Her first choice
in terms of marriage

was a young man
by the name of Euple Byrd.

Now, Tammy had dated
all the Byrd brothers,

but she ended up marrying Euple.

It was, uh, a very tortured romance.

Mike: Big words for Jimmy McDonough,

a Gonzo journalist with bylines

in the Village Voice,

Mojo, Spin,

and Juggs.

They moved into a log cabin

on her grand-pappy's property,

and no running water,

no electricity, no stove.

Immediately, they
started making babies,

and they ended up having three kids.

She gets a hairdresser's license,

'cause Euple wasn't
bringing in any dough.

She was never really in poverty,

except after she married Euple and
lived in that cabin back there.

Both: Euple Byrd.

So this was a grim period in her life.

Tammy had suffered with depression

and ended up getting shock treatment.

Janette: So, one day,
she says to Euple,

"I'm still going to
Nashville to become a star.

I'm going to be a star."

And Euple said,

"Dream on, baby. Dream on."

At some point there,
Tammy just decides,

"I'm going to Nashville."

She packs up her belongings, her kids...

there's a tricycle tied
to the top of the roof...

- (engine starts, revs)
- ...and she leaves Euple.

Mike: Choice number two for Tammy,

after she left Euple, got her
a little closer to her dream.

She took her three kids to Nashville

and hitched her wagon to
a man named Don Chapel.

Now, Don is a good songwriter

and also a mediocre singer
who wears a bad wig,

but he's pitching songs
to George Jones,

and Jones is recording 'em.

Don had written a song for George,

and Tammy was aware of that,

so she gets in thick with Don Chapel.

I guess they fell in love or in heat.

Who knows? But they married.

Mike: It lasted all of
about eight months.

That's how long it took for Don Chapel

to introduce his new
wife to George Jones.

It all happened in a cheap motel room.

They'd gone there to try
to sell George a song.

She walked into the motel room,

and he was in the bed
with another woman.

I think it might have been two women.

Oh, dear God.

Tammy said, "He didn't
even notice I was there."

That, for Tammy Wynette,
is a challenge.

Shortly after that meeting,

Don and Tammy start doing
shows with George Jones,

and George walked out
on stage one night

and sang a song with Tammy.

Next thing you know, Jones
and Tammy are getting cozy,

you know, on the road.

And according to one tour manager,

they had a little
assignation in a motel.

He said that Jones' eyes
were as big as saucers,

and he said, "Do you know what she did?

Tammy done sucked my toes."

(chuckles)

His toes? It really was his toes?

That's probably right.

Mike: This act of passion

apparently sealed the deal for George.

Now, no one knows exactly what Tammy's
husband, Don, knew or didn't know,

but for some reason, he invited
George over for dinner.

Of course, Tammy is making ham
and dumplings or whatever.

You know, she'd put on the spread,

and Don Chapel talked to her

like she was a piece
of dung on his shoe.

And George Jones gets up,

flips the table over,

and throws a chair through the window.

George says, "Tammy, I
love you, and you love me.

Get the kids. We're out of here."

Honey, she didn't even grab her coat.

She walked out that door
and never looked back.

And it's the beginning

of George Jones and Tammy Wynette.

Both: ♪ Well, I'm gonna
get on the old turnpike ♪

♪ And I'm gonna ride ♪

♪ I'm gonna leave this
town till you decide ♪

♪ Which one you want the most,
them Opry stars or me ♪

♪ Milwaukee, here I come
from Nashville, Tennessee ♪

Jimmy: George and Tammy
started touring together

and rode together in a bus, and boys,

and were Mr. and Mrs. Country Music.

They were like movie stars.

Mike: One of their first big admirers

was Tammy's first husband, Euple Byrd.

One night we're out on
the road, on concert,

and Euple walks up to the stage

and stands in line to get an autograph.

Both: Euple Byrd.

Nanette: And he says, "Can
I have your autograph?"

And Tammy says, "Dream on, baby.
Dream on."

George and Tammy:
♪ No, we're not the jet set ♪

♪ We're the old Chevrolet set ♪

Janette: She had that style.

What I think is very interesting,

that Tammy Wynette let us do her hair,

and she was a hairdresser.

In her first career, she did hair.

Baby fine, thin hair...
Tammy Wynette's hair was...

She had the hair of a frog.

Thank God for wigs.

Scott: Tammy Wynette was a
lady, and she was classy,

and so she looks at George and says,

"Well, maybe I can 'teen'
you up just a little bit."

When I went to work for George,

he had already been
nicknamed "The Possum."

The reason for that was
'cause he looked like one.

His eyes was...

Yeah, his eyes was, uh,
way too close together.

Of course, you know, Tammy has
that background in hairdos,

so she thought, "Well,
that little crew cut

"you've been wearing
for all these years,

that's not gonna get
that right now, George."

So he wears it long,
and she combs it back.

And some of their friends
said, "Maybe it looks

like Cornelius from The
Planet of the Apes.

(dramatic music plays)

Mike: Tammy was grooming George
to be the perfect husband,

but I think we all know it
just doesn't work like that.

When Tammy married George,
she was aware that he drank,

and she really thought,
"Well, I can change him,"

and that became very obvious
quickly that that wasn't the case.

Tammy was not a boozer.
She didn't drink.

George Jones was an alcoholic.
He wanted to get drunk.

Mike: Wayne Oliver was
a 20-year-old kid

when he first encountered the legend.

He was one of several managers
Jones would have over the years.

Started out George liked Bloody Marys.

You know, he liked to have a
couple of them in the mornings

with some celery, peppers,
and spices he could get.

And then we'd go have lunch,
and he'd like a couple beers,

and then he'd go to Jack and Coke,

sometimes straight Jack.

- He liked that whiskey.
- He did.

(both laugh)
But George wanted to drink,

believe me, brother, he'd get it.

I used to have
to feed him raw potatoes.

People'd say, "Well, why do you
carry a bag of potatoes around?"

Because that starch
would soak up that alcohol.

He would put salt all over 'em,

and he loved them raw potatoes.

I remember one time when Jones
and I were sitting on the bus,

he said, "Come on, Nanette,
have a drink with me."

And I said, "George,
I don't want a drink."

So he goes back where the closets are,

comes out with a bottle of vodka,

hands it to me, and says, "Drink it."

He gets drunk on his ass, man.

George goes on stage,

he can't remember
the words to the songs.

He didn't know if he was
on stage or off stage.

He didn't know where he was.

Janette: They would sing
real close to the microphone

so he could read Tammy's lips.
(chuckles)

Nanette: They would be
singing, and Tammy'd go...

and she'd poke him,
"Okay, it's your turn."

She was always instructing
him when to go.

Mike: There was no one George
liked to spend his days

drinking with more than country
music legend, Waylon Jennings.

Sadly, his son, Shooter,
was present during many

of their marathon drinking sessions.

Well, I remember when I was little,

George Jones would come over
to our house,

and there was one time when
he just got drunk and he was,

he would get angry, and
he'd get angry at my dad.

And I think he called him a "Conway
Twitty singing son of a bitch."

♪ Bum, bum, bum ♪

Shooter: And that's when my
dad tied him to the tree.

(grunting) He was out there
screaming, you know,

"I'm the greatest country
music singer of all time!"

And my dad opened the door and said,
"Yeah, and you're fucking tied to a tree,"

then slammed the door, you know?

Then later, he was around, he was fine.

Mike: By all accounts, George had another
problem with another Nashville legend.

Tammy had confided in him
that she had been friendly

with the great Porter Wagoner
when she first got to town.

Porter Wagoner had... okay, first
of all, he had great hair.

He had a great pompadour. He
wore fabulous Nudie suits...

I mean, decked out to the
nines with rhinestones.

George Jones and Porter Wagoner

were booked on The Grand
Ole Opry together,

so George got to thinking
that Porter and Tammy

had something going on, like a romance.

- So, he saw Porter go to the bathroom,
- (unzips)

- so George follows Porter into the bathroom.
- (door opens)

I do know that Porter
Wagoner's penis proceeds him.

- I mean, his reputation...
- The reputation of the size of his penis...

- Both: Proceeds him.
- (laughs)

Charlene: George walked
up behind Porter,

said, "I want to see what
it is Tammy's so proud of."

And he reached around Porter,

got a hold of his penis,
and twisted it real hard.

(grunting, scuffling)

George said that Porter
didn't move much on stage,

but said he moved a lot
down there in that bathroom.

He said his Nudie suit got to
glittering all over the place.

Mike: A few years into the marriage,

George and Tammy decided maybe
it would be for the best

if they got out of Nashville.

They started house hunting in Florida.

Charlene: When things go
shaky, Tammy would say,

"George, let's go out and
look around at some houses."

Well, that was right up George's alley.

George Jones loved interior decorating.

Red and black was his favorite color,

and velvet paint... (laughs) paintings.

Velvet wallpaper. It's just... ugh!

The bed was mirrored

with drapes down the side of the bed

that were heavy velvet.

(laughing)

It's the damnedest thing
you've ever seen in your life.

Mike: Tammy let George decorate

their plantation manor
in Lakeland, Florida,

with help from a local furniture store,

and then he and Tammy
returned the favor.

Tammy and I would like to tell you

about some friends of ours,

the folks at Badcock
Home Furnishing Centers.

Both: Badcock.

- B-A-D-C-O-C-K.
- Badcock.

Both: Badcock.

Yeah, it's Badcock.

Take it from us,
Badcock will treat you right.

Mike: George managed to decorate
just about everything they owned,

so Tammy set him loose on the only
unrenovated space they had left.

We had bought a bus one time,
and George had taken the bus,

stripped it all down, and they put
bunk beds and everything in it.

I mean, it looked nice and
decorative, and stuff like that,

with pictures hanging on the wall.

I mean, hanging.
Not fastened, but hanging.

He had the bunk beds
setting on the floor.

Not nailed down,
but just setting on there.

He kinda liked the shag carpet.

- We had shag everywhere.
- On the walls.

Gary: - So consequently, we
was coming around a curve,

and the driver couldn't
drive to begin with.

He ran it off of a mountain.

Everything in there came
crashing up to the front.

(chuckles) George got
his chest bone cracked.

I got a bed rail upside my head.
(banging)

We couldn't hardly get out,

'cause it was setting on its nose.

George, he didn't like to tour anyhow.

I don't think he really liked
to be out there on stage.

Mike: It turns out the reigning king

of country music didn't really like
performing country music in public,

according to Tammy and George's
daughter, Tamala Georgette Jones.

Georgette Jones:
He loved music so much,

but he was very, very nervous

when he would sing in public,

'cause he was worried about how...

what people would think about him.

And when he became popular
and started doing well,

people would just come up
and hand him drinks...

and he realized after he had one
or two, he wasn't nervous anymore.

He didn't really think that that was
going to turn into two or three,

to five or six, to 10 or 12,

to every night, to all the time.

He'd get drunk, and he'd miss shows

and refuse to go on and just...

- he was a belligerent...
- Arnie: Mm-hmm.

Gary: Just a very belligerent guy.

George would take off
in the middle of the night,

and you couldn't find him.

Mike: Old Possum had a
knack for disappearing

throughout his long career,
which probably explains

why he had so many managers.

Gerald Murray put in
his time on the bus.

George, he hadn't called
in a couple of nights,

so I started getting
worried just a little bit.

We didn't know where he was.

All of a sudden, one
day, he come driving up,

and I said, "Man, where have you been?"

He said, "Oh, I've just
been out riding around."

And said, "Well, where'd
you get that white truck?"

He said, "Well, I bought it
down at that Chevrolet place."

I sat down, looked at the mileage,

And I said, "Where'd you ride to?"

And he said, "Ah." He said, "I
just wanted to go riding around."

He said, "I picked up
this guy down there,

"and he was, uh, just kind of homeless.

"We got going down
the road, and I said,

'Well, where you going?'
And he said, 'Four mile.'"

And George said,
"Uh, four miles to where?"

The guy said, "Four miles."

So they drive on a little piece
and then George asked him,

he said, "Uh, four miles to where?"

He said, "Four miles."

So they just keep on riding
down the road right there,

and George going four miles to
somewhere, he don't know where,

until he finally realizes
that the guy was saying

Fort Myers... Florida.

Mike: By the time George figured
out where the guy was headed,

he'd probably driven over 600
miles, four miles at a time.

I said, "What did you do? And he said,

"Well, I gave him a little
bit of money, you know."

And I said, "How much
money did you give him?"

He said, "It wasn't all that much."

I said, "Well, how much did you keep?"

He said, "Well, I kept $20 to get gas,

so I could get home."

And I said, "$20?"

I said, "But when you
left, you had 25,000."

(cash register dings)

We were always looking for Jones,

because he got to be "No-Show Jones."

Possum got to be No-Show.

They booked him for The Johnny
Carson Show. He wouldn't go.

He said, "They'll make fun of me."

And, uh, he missed it. That's
when he was named No-Show Jones.

I'm not sure that George
Jones ever thought

about being a star
or wanted to be a star. And...

Or ever knew he was as star.

Or ever knew he was as star,

and he didn't give a damn about money.

He just didn't.

He was with somebody tough like Waylon,

and he was in a bathroom,
and they were bragging

about how much money
they'd made that night.

And George just started
peeling off $100 bills

and flushing them down
the toilet, you know.

He just had no respect for money.

George was a car fanatic.

One year, I was with him,
he had 36 brand-new cars.

My favorite car of George's
was this Pontiac Bonneville

that had 4,000 silver dollars embedded

in the dash of the car
and throughout the floor.

And it had bullhorns
on the front of the car,

and the horn made
a sound like a dying bull.

(bull bellows)

That was what was amazing about Jones.

This was a guy who just
didn't give a damn

and did whatever he wanted
to do for his own amusement.

That was an essential part of this guy,

and it had to be hard to live with.

Mike: - When George became
especially hard to live with,

Tammy would turn to their
lawyer, this guy, Jon Lentz.

One night I was at home,
and Tammy called and said,

"Can you please come over here?"

George wanted to get some more whiskey...
(bottle shatters)

...and she threw all of the
car keys in the bushes

where he couldn't find them.

So he decided to ride his power mower

toward Melrose Liquors.

And we got in my car and
headed down Franklin Road.

Well, low and behold, as I
looked across the highway,

there was George
coming back the other way.

He'd already gotten to Melrose Liquors.

The thing's going five miles an hour.

He didn't even turn the blade off,

I mean, so it's
throwing rocks everywhere.

And in his lap he had
a little brown sack.

I made a U-turn on Franklin
Road, pulled up beside George.

Tammy just rolled down the
window and let him have it.

I hardly ever heard her curse,

and she said, "You stupid son of a
bitch, you're gonna get killed!"

And George acted completely
oblivious to all of this.

He would not acknowledge our presence.

He didn't look at Tammy.
He didn't look at the car.

He just kept driving this
power mower down the highway.

When we got back to the
house, George stopped.

He turned around and looked
at me, he said, "Hi, Jon."

I said, "Hi, George."
And he said, "Well,

"as you can see my wife
is a little upset with me,

"so if you don't mind,
I'm going to excuse myself,

go to my bedroom, lock
myself in, and get drunk."

One time, she took the
keys from the lawn mower.

They used to have a bunch of a
horses, and he got on the horse.

- ♪
♪
- Next thing we knew,

we got a phone call from the bar

that George had got on the horse,

rode it downtown, and
tied it out front.

- (neighs)
- So we went down,

and George was so blitzed
by the time we got there,

he couldn't ride the horse back.

Mike: From the very beginning

of their romance, there
was never any question

about what Tammy would do
if the marriage got rocky.

♪ But if you love him ♪

♪ You'll forgive him ♪

♪ Even though he's hard ♪

♪ To understand ♪

Nanette: She wanted
to stand by her man,

and by God, she did,
through thick and thin,

through hell and fire and brimstone.

♪ After all ♪

♪ He's just a man ♪

♪ Stand by your man ♪

I mean, it was just the song

for all of the women all over the world

and all of the gay people
all over the world.

They loved that "Stand By Your Man."

♪ And show the world you love him ♪

And there she was, standing by her man.

That's the way all their
fans looked at it,

and they was just eating it up.

♪ Stand by ♪

♪ Your man ♪

(applause)

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