The Rise and FALL of George Jones..

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The Rise and Fall of George Jones
In 1980, a country music legend was found talking to himself on the side of a Nashville highway, down to his last dime and nearly frozen to death. Just two years later, he'd record the greatest country song ever made. This is the story of George Jones - the man who went from singing for tips in Texas dive bars to becoming country music's most tragic hero.
But to understand how country's greatest voice ended up on that frozen highway, we need to go back to where it all began - a small wooden shack in Beaumont, Texas, where a boy's cruel father unknowingly forged the most powerful voice in country music history...
Beaumont, Texas, 1931. The Great Depression has its grip on America, and in a small wooden shack, George Glenn Jones is born into poverty. His father, a truck driver and pipe fitter, would come home drunk and force young George to sing for him, threatening punishment if he stopped. But there was a silver lining to these brutal "singing lessons" - George's sister would slip him quarters while he performed, teaching him early that music could be both salvation and escape.
The Jones family radio became young George's university. He'd sit for hours memorizing Roy Acuff songs and studying the yodeling techniques of Hank Williams. By age seven, he was performing in front of the local church, though his father would often disrupt services in a drunken stupor. The congregation's sympathy offerings became the family's primary income, embedding in George's mind a complex relationship between music, alcohol, and survival.
By age nine, George was performing on the streets of Beaumont, his guitar case open for tips. Local radio station KRIC gave him his first break - a fifteen-minute spot every Saturday morning. The pay was two dollars, but more importantly, it gave him his first taste of professional performance. The station manager noted in his log book: "Kid sounds like he's forty years old. Voice too big for his body."