All language subtitles for 103 George Jones and Tammy Wynette part 1

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 ♪

♪ 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.

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,

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

He throwed the whiskey
bottle at me on the bandstand.

It missed me about that far.

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...

...and hit him
in the face with it.

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."

So they put him in jail,

and I took his car
and went home.

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.

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."

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.

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!
♪ Ooh, White Lightning ♪

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.

Paycheck worked for
George four or five times.

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.

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.

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."

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."

♪ 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.

You can see
where this is headed.

Scott Kennedy runs
a Tammy Wynette museum,

near the cotton fields where
she grew up in Mississippi.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Euple Byrd.

So this was a grim period
in her life.

Tammy had suffered
with depression

and ended up
getting shock treatment.

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...

...and she leaves Euple.

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.

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."

His toes?
It really was his toes?

That's probably right.

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.

♪ 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 ♪

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.

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.

Euple Byrd.

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

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

♪ No, we're not the jet set ♪

♪ We're the old Chevrolet set ♪

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

They would sing
real close to the microphone

so he could read Tammy's lips.

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.

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 ♪

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

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.

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,

so George follows Porter into the bathroom.

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

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

Proceeds him.

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.

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.

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.

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--
paintings.

Velvet wallpaper.
It's just-- ugh!

The bed was mirrored

with drapes down the
side of the bed

that were heavy velvet.

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

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.

Badcock.

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

Badcock.

Yeah, it's Badcock.

Take it from us,
Badcock will treat you right.

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.

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.

George got
his chest bone cracked.

I got a bed rail upside my head.

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.

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.

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--
- Mm-hmm.

Just a very belligerent guy.

George would take off
in the middle of the night,

and you couldn't find him.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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...

...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.

So we went down,

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

he couldn't ride
the horse back.

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 ♪

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 ♪