All language subtitles for Tales From the Tour Bus - 01x04 - George Jones and Tammy Wynette Part 2.WEBRip.English.HI.C.updated.Addic7ed.com

(car engine revs)

(country music playing)

Welcome back to the story of maybe the
most famous marriage in Nashville:

George Jones and Tammy Wynette.

They first got together when
country was blowing up,

crossing over into the
mainstream culture.

Some of their biggest hits
were about marriage,

even when their own was falling apart.

♪ We're gonna hold on ♪

♪ We're gonna hold on ♪

♪ To each other ♪

The marriage didn't last
long, about six years,

but they kept producing
big hits for decades.

Despite death threats,

drug problems, and new spouses,

they always seemed to find
their way back to each other.

I got to witness a little
of this near the end.

Tammy did the voice

of Hank Hill's mom on King of the Hill.

Don't tell me you're
uncomfortable with the thought

of me and Gary sleeping
in the same room.

I didn't have that thought, Mom.

You put that thought in my...

And I heard from her that George
could do a mean Donald Duck,

under certain conditions.

We'll get to that later.

(theme music playing)

Subtitle sync and corrections by
awaqeded for www.addic7ed.com.

Tammy was a beautiful lady,

and George was a great man.

He just had... some demons.

You knew when 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."

Mike: Wayne Oliver was 20 years old

when George and Tammy got married
and started performing together.

He spent much of his career
booking their shows.

We were playing up in Washington, DC,

and we were headed to Logan, Ohio.

I said, "George, let's go. Let's
go to the hotel, spend the night.

We'll fly there 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 didn't 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
till you get to Logan, Ohio."

♪ ♪

So the next morning, all the band
members were standing around the bus,

and 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, "Shit, we've got
this show out here,

and it's gonna be
25,000 to 30,000 people."

And they said, "Well, he was
walking down thataway."

So I went down there, walking,

and I seen 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.

Fact, we had two bottles
of wine." I said, "What?"

She said, "Yeah," said, "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 the
cab driver said, "Yeah."

He said, "George got
in a cab about an hour ago.

Said he's headed to Nashville."

I said, "Holy shit. George is gone."

I said, "I don't know
what we're gonna do."

And you seen those people had
been out there all day, drinking.

And we'd seen some pretty nice fights,

and I said, "Look,
we've got a little problem."

I said, "George is gone."

And there was a DJ standing
over on the other side.

He heard me say that,
and he went up on the stage

and said, "George Jones is gone.
There's not gonna be a show."

And I said, "Damn it." People
were tearing the stages down.

They were throwing rocks at the bus,

cutting the tires on the bus.

Lucky, I had a .38
with me in my briefcase.

And just happened,

a lot of Hell's Angels
come to the show.

And I recognized one of 'em, and
I motioned for him to come over.

And he come to the side of the bus,

I said, "Spook, you gotta
get our ass out of here.

They're gonna kill all of us."

He come over on the motorcycles.

We went out of there on the rims.
The tires had come off.

A little later on, I got a phone call

that he was checked in the Holiday
Inn there in Panama City.

George always thought
I had a bug on him,

because I could find him
anywhere he went.

And he would love
to go to some cheap hotel,

just stay in there and
eat fried chicken

and drink two or three fifths
of Evan Williams Whiskey.

I'll never 'get. I went
and knocked on the door,

and I said, "Room Service." And
he says, "I knew you'd find me."

So I got him washed and got
that hair sprayed down,

and we come back to Logan, Ohio.

And he went out there and done
about a two and a half hour show.

He apologized to the crowd he missed.

He said, "You know how I am."

Said, "I wanna thank those
two little old ladies

for giving me those two
bottles of wine we dranked."

I mean when Jones turned it on,

there was nobody
could touch him, brother.

♪ Someday my day will come ♪

(cheers, applause)

♪ I won't need a thing at all ♪

♪ I can stand proud and tall ♪

♪ And say just what I feel... ♪

Mike: George's talent was
giant, indisputable.

His commitment was another thing.

His wife, Tammy, and all
those who worked with him

were enamored by his voice,

but also living at the
mercy of his drinking.

Nanette: She would
laugh about it then...

- (Janette laughs)
- ...but it was so horrendous

that he was so drunk, and
he was wrecking the house.

And she was afraid he was gonna go out

and get in the car, and have
a car accident or whatever.

Mike: Janette and
Nanette Smith, sisters,

rode the bus with George
and Tammy for years,

doing hair and makeup
on the road and in the studio.

This was probably during
the gypsy shag era.

This would be a little up-do for her.

This is called a page boy.

Mike: The Smith sisters weren't
allowed to touch George's hair.

That was Tammy's job.

I'd say, "George,
do you want me to do your hair?"

"No, I'll wait on my hairdresser.

(laughs)
- Tammy's hair.

Mike: The girls would, however, conspire
with Tammy to keep Jones off the bottle.

Tammy calls me and she
said to George at home,

"George, that was Jan. Her yardman
is sick, she needs a yardman.

You know how that yard of hers is.
It can't go a week. Da-da-da."

So she calls me in a few
minutes, and she says,

"Don't get near a window.
Don't get near a door.

Don't peep out, but when you get
a chance, look at your yardman."

I look out. George Jones is out there

in a wifebeater, a pair of shorts,

some tennis shoes, a ball cap,

taking all of his rakes, cutters
and things out of his car.

He didn't give a damn.
He wanted to be a yardman.

Janette: He worked on my
yard for three hours.

It was more perfect
than it ever has been.

And he had a big
number-one record then.

So when he started to get
in the truck and leave,

I opened the door and I was like,

"Aren't you gonna autograph
it?" He was like...

(laughs)

Tammy called me and asked me

to come and look for him.

I found him one time,

12 or one o'clock at night,

I found him on one of those back roads

when he'd pulled over to throw up.

He was hanging out of the car,

his head almost touching
the ground, passed out,

with the door open and the car running.

I think I might have saved
his life at that time.

Tammy finally got fed up
with George's drinking,

and to retaliate, she had
fed him some poisoned food.

And it was moldy cornbread,

sour beans, and rotten potatoes.

George got to throwing up
for a few days

and had stomach problems,

and he said that she poisoned him,

'cause was going
to collect that insurance.

And I said, "George, you know, it
could've been something you eat."

This is the sort of thing
that Tammy had to endure,

because there was no controlling
Jones, and he just didn't give a shit.

Mike: You may recall Gonzo
journalist, Jimmy McDonough,

one of the last to interview Tammy
about her time with George.

At one point, Tammy alleges

that George came home from a bender,

he threw a punch at her and missed.

She got him into bed, and he woke up

and proceeded to go berserk.

She said he pointed a rifle in her
direction and fired at her...

(gunshot)

...and destroyed the
contents of the house.

(gunfire)

I got there,
and he is wilder than a buck,

had hair everywhere.

Finally, we took the gun away from him,

and he said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I don't know why I did it."

Jimmy: He ended up being dragged
away in a straight jacket,

where he spent 10 days drying out.

Tammy reached her end point.

I have never seen
a more terrified human being,

but she... by golly, she did it.

Jimmy: That was the end.

Tammy wouldn't let him come home,

and the marriage was over.

The great storybook romance

that Tammy dreamed of was no more.

Mike: The split had ramifications

beyond their love for each
other and the children.

Having Mr. and Mrs.
Country Music break up,

well, that's bad for business.

No question about whether or not

her career or his career

might be hurt by their divorce,

and of course, how to
divide up the band.

Mike: The Jones Boys... real brothers,

Don, Gary, and Arnie Adams...

had been with George and
Tammy from the beginning,

alongside a rotating door
of fellow Jones boys,

musicians like singer-songwriter
Johnny Paycheck

and George's closest friend,

songwriter and guitar
player, Peanutt Montgomery.

When I was a Jones Boy,
traveling with him,

I drank beer, you know.

I never could understand
how George could drink

and sit for six or eight hours
and never go to the bathroom.

You know, he must've
been wearing Depends.

(both laugh)

Peanutt: Sometimes he'd
lock the bathroom door,

you know, when I needed
to use the bathroom.

I broke him of that.

I'd go back in his bedroom
and pee on the floor.

Mike: When the marriage ended,

the situation on the road changed.

How did the Jones boys

end up with Tammy?

- That was in the divorce.
- Oh, okay, yeah.

Tammy got custody of the band.

(guys laugh)

The band all went with Tammy,

the bus went with Tammy,

because she was the one
that they could depend on,

and they actually liked her.

Mike: In 1976, Tammy went
back out on the road

without George Jones for
the first time in years.

We're on the bus, and Tammy
said, "What if nobody comes?"

We all fell out laughing, 'cause she thought
they were coming to see George Jones.

She was so scared every night.

"What if nobody shows up?

What if they want Jones to be here?"

(crowd shouting)

Janette: They kept
screaming, "Where's George?"

- And James Holly...
- He was the bass player.

And he went up
to the microphone and said,

"We don't know where George is,

- and he doesn't either."
- "And he doesn't either." (chuckles)

After the divorce,
certain of George's fans

wanted to vent their anger at Tammy,

and she was, in some cases, ridiculed.

- She was pretty gutsy.
- She was real gutsy.

If we could've just
excluded men from her life,

she'd still be alive and be the
biggest star in the world.

After Tammy left George,
George was a mess.

We'd hunt, we'd camp out.

He just liked to do things.

He threw out in the river one day
and caught a little bitty bream,

and he said, "Oh, Peanutt, the fish
are out in the middle of the river."

That was not a bream he caught.

He caught a catfish about this long.

Anyway, when he'd go fishing, it
wound up costing him a fortune.

Said, "We gotta go get a boat."

So they took off to the sporting
goods place and bought a boat.

And then he realized he had to
have something to pull it with,

so they went down to the Chevrolet
place and bought a new truck.

He sent me to the grocery
store to get folding chairs,

and cooking pots and pans, and food.

♪ ♪

And so we got the truck
and the boat all together,

and pulled it down to the river.

He'd dig a hole and put corn...

wrap it up in tin foil,
bury it in the ground,

and build a fire in there on
coals and roast that corn.

I don't know where he learned
to do all this stuff.

Indians.

Mike: With the exception
of the expense,

these nature sojourns
worked out pretty well,

until Peanutt found God
and decided to get sober.

George went the other way.

By then, he'd begun playing music again

with his only connection
to Tammy, the Jones Boys.

George would jerk out
a bag of cocaine there,

and then he would just get
completely stoned, totally.

Mike: This newfound
high apparently caused

some kind of psychotic break in George,

which lead to multiple personalities...

well, two personalities:
The duck and the old man.

- The duck came first.
- Yeah.

And the old man came later, so
he'd have somebody to talk to.

Gary: He'd sit up all night long,
sitting in there in the bed,

and he would be talking
in the Donald Duck voice.

When he'd get in a car
and he was drinking,

he would talk like Donald Duck.

(mimics Donald Duck)

Then he'd talk like the old man.

I don't believe in it.
It ain't natural.

And then they'd get in a fight,
and then he'd get between them.

If the good Lord meant for us to
read, we'd be born knowing how!

(mimics Donald Duck)

Wayne: And he wouldn't be paying
no attention where he was going.

You know, George had a lot of wrecks.

(mimics Donald Duck moaning)
(car horn moos)

One day, we were on the bus,

going down the road with the band,

and he decided he wanted
to get rid of the duck,

- so he kicked him off the bus.
- (Duck voice) No, no, no, no!

Charlene: And he went on
down the road a while,

and he got to worrying about it.

He'd done kicked the duck off the bus,

and it was his best friend.

So he made the driver turn around,

and go back and pick up the duck,

put him back on the bus.

(mimics Donald Duck)

That's when we...
we convinced ourselves,

"Boys, we've got
to do something with him."

"You know, we can't go on with you, uh,

being so distraught over Tammy,
and you can't even perform."

And we convinced him that he
should sign up with Tammy

just so he could be back somewhere
in association with her.

One song that George and Tammy did
after the divorce was "Golden Rings."

It was a true story.

They have a ring
they found in a pawn shop,

and ended up with a broken marriage.

And I think that affected
the fans greatly

because it had so much
personal tragedy in it.

♪ In a pawnshop in Chicago ♪

♪ On a sunny summer day ♪

♪ A couple gazes at the wedding
rings there on display ♪

♪ She smiles and nods at him ♪

♪ As he says, "Honey, that's for you ♪

♪ It's not much, but it's
the best that I can do" ♪

Both: ♪ Golden rings ♪

♪ With one tiny little stone... ♪

You know, the beautiful thing is,

that in spite of all
this crazy, crazy stuff,

they managed to keep it
together as artists.

And you listen to that song,

you get the whole picture of everything
they're about in one record.

There's nothing like it.

♪ ♪

We get along better now
than we ever have.

I'll never get George
Jones out of my life.

He'll always be a part of my life.

He was my idol. He still is.

We may not can live together,

but he can still make me
cry, listening to him sing.

♪ ♪

Both: ♪ A couple gazes at ♪

♪ The wedding rings there on display ♪

Mike: Unfortunately, "Golden
Ring" was a mirage,

a fantasy for the stage.

Backstage, George was
treated to the sight

- of a variety of men courting his ex-wife.
- (applause)

Tammy Wynette had to be in love,

and it was very easy
for her to get a man,

because she was Tammy Wynette.

There was Johnny Rodriguez.

There was a guy that drove our bus.

I dated the bass player,
she had her way with him.

I dated Michael Tomlin,
she married him.

She stole all my boyfriends.

One of the people that she fell
in love with was Burt Reynolds.

Burt Reynolds had a horse
ranch in Jupiter, Florida,

so Tammy decided that she wanted to
buy a second house to be near Burt.

When she fell in love with somebody,

she would pursue it
to the ends of the earth.

Mike: She was pursued publicly as well

by the rich and the powerful,

who just wanted to be seen
as the man by her side.

Every politician in the world wanted to
stand there singing, "Stand By Your Man."

So one day, she's standing by
the side of George Wallace,

and the next day, she's
standing beside Ronald Reagan.

Well, we're in Jackson, Mississippi,

and Ronald Reagan would always kiss her
on the cheek at the end of the song.

Well, Ronald Reagan
kissed her in the mouth.

She come off, she's furious. She
went, "He swabbed my tonsils, Jan.

He almost gagged me.
I am putting an end to this."

And she got this huge red dress

that she was gonna wear
to the White House.

So she goes on the stage, she does
"Stand By Your Man" at the end.

Well, she usually goes out in the
audience and gets a man to stand by.

The president is sitting
there, just grinning,

with his wife sitting by him,

and everybody knew how jealous she was.

And all of a sudden, Tammy sits down in
his lap, puts her arm around his neck.

The Secret Service perks up,
everybody perks up.

I thought I was gonna die.

Then they go in the dressing
room, and she said,

"Bet I don't have to
stand by him anymore."

(laughing)

Mike: The seemingly endless
string of men in her life,

of course, fueled George's demons,

but Tammy had her own
peculiar problems,

according to their daughter,
Tamala Georgette Jones.

We started having death threats

on my grandparents, on me, on my mom.

We went bowling one night,

and someone had broken into our house

and turned on every faucet and bathtub,

so that when we got home, our
entire house was flooded.

And on every TV and mirror, any
type of reflective surface,

they had taken red lipstick
and written, "Slut, whore, pig,"

all throughout the entire house.

Multiple instances like this that
had happened over several months.

My assumption was always
that it had been

a disgruntled fan of George Jones'

who was mad at Tammy
for divorcing George.

She asked me to come over,

and she had thoughtfully
provided me a shotgun,

which I placed under the bed

in case some prowler came through,

but nothing happened.

And the same thing the next night,

nothing happened,

so I didn't go back over there
to spend the night anymore,

but a few days later,

somebody firebombed the house.

(shatters)

Georgette: I was in my mom's bedroom,

and the house caught on fire there,

and the whole back of
the house burned down.

Tennessee fire marshal decided

to have polygraph tests of
everybody that had been there.

And they tested Tammy, said, "She might
have had something to do with this."

And they tested her daughters,
who were teenagers at best.

And each time they would test one,

they'd say, "She did it. We've got it."

Then they tested her mother, Mildred.

"Mildred must have had
something to do with this."

And her grandmother,
who could hardly walk,

and said, "She was involved."

After that, I became very
skeptical of any polygraph test.

All sorts of bizarre, unexplained
incidents happened in Tammy's life.

You know, there's the
alleged kidnapping.

No one was ever arrested in that.

There was always people out to get her

or some espionage around Tammy,

which was never really,
uh, explained away.

Mike: Tammy would eventually
remarry yet another manager

and develop her own lethal addiction
to prescription pain killers.

George hit his own rock
bottom after losing Tammy,

the duck, the old man,

and then losing his best friend,

Peanutt Montgomery, to
organized religion.

George was really upset because
Peanutt had become a Christian.

He was jealous of Jesus.

Charlene: George began
to get mad at Peanutt,

because he wouldn't go do concerts,
wouldn't go places to gamble,

so I was at home, and
George called the house.

He said, "Where's Little Jesus?"

I said, "George, what do you mean?"

"You know what I mean.
Where's Little Jesus?

"I want to get him down, I'm
gonna pull his beard out,

one by one with some tweezers."

And I'd just hang up on him.
Well, after a while,

Peanutt called me and
said they got to talking.

And George asked Peanutt to
meet him down at Cypress Creek.

When I got down there,
he was down there.

I pulled up there, and he was
sitting there with the window down.

And I pulled up beside him,
and I rolled my window down

and hung my arms out
just like that, you know.

I said, "George, what are
you persecuting me for?"

He said, "People just don't
know what I go through with."

And all at once, he just reached out
beside him and got that pistol.

And he said, "I'm gonna see if you're
old God can save you now, you m-f'er."

That's what he said, the very words...

only he said the word.

And he shot at me, pow, like that.

He missed me, and then he pulled

that trigger back on that .38 again.
I could hear it.

He just looked at me
like this, he said,

"Well, Peanutt, I'm
going to the house,"

like nothing had ever happened.
Just like that.

He let his window up, drove off.

I went to the sheriff. I said, "George
Jones just took a shot at me,

tried to kill me."

I had one guy who took his knife and
dug the bullet out of the door.

My friend was the district attorney.

We all partied together
and stuff, and he told me,

"Well, you know,
he'll go off with 15 years,"

he said, "because that's attempted murder.
That's a felony.

"If you want to pursue him

and convict him, I'll convict him."

But I dropped charges on him.
I dropped the charges.

Mike: - Believe it or not, there
is a happy ending to this story,

but it's probably not the
one you're used to hearing.

We put him in the hospital
and dried him out.

And, uh, he called me, at home,
after about four or five weeks.

He said, "I wanted to know if
you'd do an album with me?"

I said, "Yeah, I'd be glad to."

He said, "I know
we ain't got no money now,

"and things ain't looking good,
but if you'll stay with me,

I've got a song that's
gonna bring us out of this."

He had such confidence,
it convinced us.

"Okay, George, then you
need to get in there.

"Go to the studio, you know,

and get your voice back, get your
brain back, and record that."

♪ I went to see my friend today ♪

♪ Oh and I didn't see no tears ♪

♪ All dressed up to go away ♪

♪ First time I'd seen
him smile in years ♪

♪ He stopped loving her today ♪

(cheering)

♪ They placed a wreath
upon his door... ♪

That just blew the tops
off the charts there

and was absolutely the biggest song

for two solid years in a row.

♪ But he stopped loving her today... ♪

Wayne: George had a lot of women,

but he only loved one,
and that was Tammy.

He might shoot up the
house, but he loved her.

I've seen that man lay down and cry
at night how much he loved Tammy.

I think they both had
an addiction problem.

He was addicted to alcohol,

and Tammy was addicted to Jones.

♪ And it kept running through my mind ♪

♪ "Well, this time he's
over her for good" ♪

My mom, even weeks before she died,

we had a conversation,
and she just flat out said,

"The love of my life
will always be your dad.

Your dad is that one for me."

♪ But he stopped loving her ♪

♪ Today ♪

(cheers, applause)

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awaqeded for www.addic7ed.com.

(theme music playing)