Wreck and Recovery
Watching George and Tammy, the Showtime miniseries about the tempestuous marriage of George Jones (Michael Shannon) and Tammy Wynette (Jessica Chastain) left me jonesing for more classic country. (Neither actor could sing like the people they were portraying, but who could?) So I returned to Ken Burns’ documentary series, Country Music for a chaser.
And boy howdy, what a chaser! As a long time country music fan, I was aware of the music’s booze-soaked roots. I’d started listening to Merle Haggard about the time I started drinking regularly (age 18 or so), and was amazed at the hardcore truth behind songs like Hag’s “No Reason To Quit”: “I got no reason for living right, and there’s no other way to forget…” If he was seeking salvation, he forgot to mention it.
But Burns’ history conjures the honor roll of country’s great drunks and drug addicts, starting with Hank Williams and including some of the music’s greatest artists: Johnny Cash, Lefty Frizzell, Porter Wagoner and too many others to count.
What you didn’t hear was much talk about recovery. People prayed over Hank but Minnie Pearl recalled The Lonesome Drifter confessing to her, after singing “I Saw the Light” with her as she tried to sober him up for a show, “There just ain’t no light.” His decline was sad and predictable. The romance of the lost soul loses its shine in the cold light of morning.
Which is why it’s so refreshing to hear some of today’s best country musicians sing so convincingly about getting clean. Jason Isbell, Tyler Childers, and the bluegrass phenomenon Billy Strings (who’s up for several Grammy awards tonight, and whose life story sounds like something out of Demon Copperhead) have all written about getting sober, and struggling to stay that way, in a manner that would have been unimaginable to Webb Pierce. (Pierce’s “There Stands the Glass” includes a refrain familiar to every alcoholic: “It’s my first one today.”)
A pity that more of the greats of yore never had a chance to stand up in some church basement and declare their addiction to a roomful of strangers. No-Show Jones himself died sober, at the surprisingly ripe age of 81, unlike Tammy, who became addicted to opioids after her marriage to George and died at 55. It’s treacherous out there.
