50 Years Ago: Mr. and Mrs. Country Music Officially Divorce
Country music is where we turn to work through some of the most dark and depressing moments in life, with one of the most eternal themes in country music being the “Big ‘D’.” Some of the greatest songs in the catalogs of country music legends tackle divorce, like “The Grand Tour” by George Jones, and Tammy Wynette’s “D.I.V.O.R.C.E.”
George and Tammy were two of the best to ever do it—divorce songs, and country music in general. So perhaps it should be of no surprise that Mr. and Mrs. Country Music would themselves get married, have a child, and eventually, divorce. It was like a country song come to life.
It was 50 years ago today—March 12th 1975—that the ink officially dried on the divorce papers for George Jones and Tammy Wynette, ending what perhaps was one of the most tumultuous marriages in history—country music or otherwise. But it didn’t end the music for either, as solo artists, and together.
Both George Jones and Tammy Wynette were twice divorced before they married, so they already had some experience with nuptials and annulments. They first met in a Nashville recording studio while Wynette was still married to songwriter Don Chapel. All three became friends. But one night when Jones went to Tammy and Don’s house for dinner, and Tammy and Don got in a heated argument. Don called Tammy a “son of a bitch” in front of George, and George lost it.
“I felt rage fly all over me,” Jones said in his autobiography. “I jumped from my chair, put my hands under the dinner table, and flipped it over. Dishes, utensils, and glasses flew in all directions. Don’s and Tammy’s eyes got about as big as the flying dinner plates.”
George professed his love for Tammy right then and there, and the rest was (a tumultuous) history. They got married on February 16th, 1969, and had their one and only child in 1970, Tamala Georgette Jones. The couple would also give birth to numerous duet hits, including “Take Me” in 1971, their vows in song via “The Ceremony,” and when things started to sour, “We’re Gonna Hold On” that went to #1 in 1973. During their marriage, George Jones and Tammy Wynette recorded six duet albums together to go along with their successful solo careers.
The marriage was great for country music, but terrible for both George and Tammy. They were passionate lovers, and by all accounts, completely unhinged. As was said at the time, they loved each other a little too much. Just a year into the marriage, and Tammy recalls an incident where George chased her around their Florida mansion with a loaded rifle, and allegedly, even took a shot at her as she ran away. George denied the incident, but he did end up in a psychiatric hospital and a straitjacket for 10 days.
George Jones had terrible problems with alcohol, and later, cocaine. Whether Wynette had mental health issues herself or George drove her that way (or vice versa) depends on whose side of the story you hear (or believe). But by 1973, Tammy Wynette had seen enough and filed for divorce. However, they reconciled a month later, with Wynette telling the tabloids at the time that the divorce was just a ploy to get Jones to sober up. It worked, but only temporarily.
The straw that broke the camel was George Jones missing yet another recording session likely due to his alcoholism. Tammy Wynette filed for divorce again, and this time for good. She was quoted at the time saying, “George is one of those people who can’t tolerate happiness. If everything is right, there is something in him that makes him destroy it, and destroy me with it.”
The marriage was over, but the musical collaborations would continue. Tammy Wynette and George Jones would go on to record three more studio albums together, and mint #1’s with “Golden Ring,” “Near You,” and a #2 hit with “Two Story House.” George Jones would continue to profess his love for Tammy, even after she married songwriter George Richey, who ironically, was one of the songwriters for George’s divorce song “The Grand Tour.”
George Jones would go on to marry Nancy Sepulvado in 1981, and after some more years of wild moments, finally got sober for good. George and Tammy’s last album together came in 1995 in the form of One. They had reconciled and remained friends when Tammy Wynette died on April 6, 1998. Their story would go on to be an Emmy-nominated series for Showtime in 2022/2023.
It was a wild ride. But the pain they caused each other, and the sincere love they truly felt was forever etched into the songs of Mr. and Mrs. Country Music, and remains an indelible part of the country music story.
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March 12, 2025 @ 1:57 pm
So sad. Only Alan Jackson would understand my pain. Perhaps that’s why he’s still one of my favorite traditional country music artist.
March 12, 2025 @ 4:54 pm
Tha fuq?
March 13, 2025 @ 6:22 am
WHATEVER!
March 12, 2025 @ 2:56 pm
Another woman singer from the era–maybe it was Jeeanie Seely–said that they used to comment that Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn each seemed to be in real life the character that the other one played in her songs.
Loretta was the sentimental “Stand by Your Man” lady (who was married to the often-drunk, often-abusve Mooney for 48 years, until his death).
And Tammy was the gal who would take anyone to Fist City if they got out of line or if she thought they were trying to take advantage of her.
March 13, 2025 @ 1:37 pm
Yet; Tammy married Richey, who definitely took advantage of her, not least by the way of her pill addiction.
Guess she deserved Richey, after all. Without Jones, she’d be another nobody with an above mediocre voice.
So she knew what she did when she married him. It certainly wasn’t his charm and handsome look – crewcut included – that lured her.
March 14, 2025 @ 5:24 am
“Without Jones, she’d be another nobody with an above mediocre voice.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all Jones did little to enhance Tammy’s career other than becoming her duet and touring partner. To the contrary, his behavior took a huge emotional toll on her that likely contributed to her many physical ailments.
Producer Billy Sherill deserves full credit for much of Tammy’s success. Sherill signed her to Epic Records. He produced & arranged her recording sessions and selected songs tailor-made to perfectly suit her voice and image. He also wrote or co-wrote many of them. Billy was even responsible for creating her stage name.
But Tammy’s success was ultimately due to her own iconic voice. It ranks among the most expressive in country music history. She had her own instantly recognizable sound & style. Mediocre is the word I’d reserve for most of today’s weak & wispy voiced female singers that are only branded as “country.” Tammy had an impressive range with superb control that she used to great effect. “Stand By Your Man” is exhibit #1.
Tammy was in fact the catalyst that brought George Jones to Epic Records in late 1971. She wanted to record duets with George and Sherill wanted to produce him. George made a financially disastrous deal to extract himself from his contract with Musicor Records just to sign with Epic.
From a young age Tammy was in love with George’s voice and the image she had created for him in her mind. George’s physical appearance seemed to matter little to her. But she soon discovered that the real George Jones in fact was an abusive and sometimes violent alcoholic who was both erratic and undependable.
Unfortunately they were two people that should never have married. They made beautiful music together but only in the studio or onstage.
George Richey was a self-serving con man that duped and drugged Tammy and hastened her demise. That was truly a shame. She deserved better.
March 12, 2025 @ 3:22 pm
George Jones caterwauling is over rated he always over acted on every song he did and it didn’t sound genuine. No wonder, he didn’t even like his supposed’ best song’ , he stopped loving her today.
Vern Gosdin really sang from the heart , maybe because he actually wrote a lot of his songs unlike jones.
As for Tammy Wynette I have no comment cause I like the gals of 90’s country better
March 13, 2025 @ 8:45 am
I like George’s music, but he nailed it with this observation – “He Stopped Loving Her Today” saved his career and, by extension, his legacy.
I listen much more to Merle, Alan, Strait, and Hank than Jones.
March 12, 2025 @ 4:20 pm
Well anyone can have an opinion but it should have some facts. George jones wrote over 60 of his songs, maybe more . I liked vern but he wasnt near the artist that jones was.
March 12, 2025 @ 6:40 pm
George Jones couldn’t pick ‘em. He picked some songs that would never be hits and passed on some that should have been. Could have been the white stuff could have been an inherent cluelessness to the tastes of the masses
George Jones passed on ‘see ruby fall’ (the Freddy Future one that Kenny price recorded, NOT the Johnny cash one) and it’s a great song and Kenny price is one of my favorite singers BUT imagine Jones doing that song with a steel guitar instead of the cantina horns that feature on so many Kenny price recordings and it’s not a stretch to think that song would have been a major Jones hit
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HDSGT45STMk
What did Jones record?
Yabba Dabba doo…
Her name is
Barrels of fun
Now… those are wonderful songs that I like… but they aren’t timeless country classics people talk about much today
Being a George Jones fan means coming to grips with the fact that a George Jones album is going to be all over the place. There are very few bad songs in the Jones catalog, but there’s a lot of very unique ones.
To some people, the uniqueness of the George Jones catalog is the appeal. Songs like the one I had back then, radio lover, cold hard truth, on our bed of roses
Part of it, I think, was producers and middle managers, throwing songs at the wall to see what stuck, part of it, I think was that. George Jones couldn’t have told the difference between a best seller and a total flop by himself. He certainly didn’t think anyone wanted to hear a song like he stopped loving her today.
Vern Gosdin didn’t have that problem.
Vern Gosdin songs are a lot more consistent, frequently a lot less unique, and very few songs got through that weren’t suited for his voice
What kept Vern Gosdin from being a top-notch country star the way George Jones became, is that by the time Vern Gosdin was a hit maker, country music was a slightly different institution, and the type of songs Vern Gosdin was recording were already on the out.
If you look at the gosdin catalogue its chock full of bona fide country hits that just came too late. Godson’s singer of sad songs would have been a smash if it was new in 1965 for example.
March 13, 2025 @ 8:51 am
I agree, Fuzzy. Jones’s legacy, for most, thrives because of “Stopped Loving Her Today.” It covers up a flawed discography. He had some bonafide classics but recorded plenty of nonsense for which his fans crucify modern singers for singing. Alan Jackson received plenty of disdain for his fun songs, but none were as silly as “Yabba Dabba Do.”
Imagine the outrage here if a modern singer cut a tune based on Homer Simpson’s catchphrase.
March 13, 2025 @ 11:04 am
I love Yabba Dabba doo. I think it’s a great example of songwriting by concept that does something unique and memorable and honestly, “Elvis said find em young and Fred said old fashioned girls are fun” is some high iq songwriting.
BUT it’s just hard to see an off the wall song like that being a chart topper.
One woman man is one of my favorite albums and my favorite Jones album by a large margin. Because it has character
But i also know exactly why it’s not one of those albums that everyone still harkens back to. Because it’s odd. It’s quirky. And frankly greatest country singer or not, not even George Jones can sing Ira Louvin.
George Jones recorded a lot of timeless classics. And he recorded a lot of songs that are now… pretty dated. Some of them are still enjoyable, others are hard to appreciate except as products of their time.
and I think THAT is the crux of why so many George Jones hits, even the big ones of the era, don’t hold up as well to modern scrutiny.
Merle, Waylon, those guys knew their bands. Their sound was their own, it was locked in.
Didn’t Jones mostly record with studio musicians? The arrangements and productions on George Jones records always reflect the period they were made, his early records to his later records
If you listen to early Merle and mid career Merle and late Merle, the differences aren’t as jarring. Noticeable but less obvious.
Early golden era Jones “uh-huh no, who shot sam, Mr fool” are obviously 60s songs and “old red” is obviously a 90s song.
If Jones had been a bandleader and tightened up his sound a lot of those same songs and recordings would be easier to look back on.
One of my favorite Jones songs is “color of the blues” and lyrically it holds water even today. But that dated production holds the track back.
March 13, 2025 @ 1:28 pm
Regarding “Yabba”, I realized that the song is bleak, almost scary; here is a man – an alcoholic – who finally lost everything, including his mind. His drunken night kicks him over the edge until he actually believe that he is sitting there talking to a very alive Elvis and Fred.
My late father – a long time pill and alcohol abuser – once vizualised our border collie as a badger who sewed pills into the seams of his pants, among other visions his occasional deliriums gave him.
In hindsight, it’s hilarious, even funny, but it was anything but back then.
So, that song could easily have been an accurate description of a Jones drinking binge. Delirium visited him quite often.
March 13, 2025 @ 2:49 pm
“Yabba Dabba Doo” or “The King is Gone,” (reportedly Hanna Barbera forced them to change the title) is a fun song, not to be taken too seriously and best done live. Waylon made it a highlight of the Highwaymen shows (I think they did it as the finale in the encore at Nassau Coliseum), but interestingly Cash seemed to want no part of it, probably because he worked with Elvis at Sun Records and found the song disrespectful.
As far as “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” I always thought that was overrated. To me, the classic Jones ballads are “The Door,” “The Window Up Above,” “The Grand Tour,” and “A Good Year For the Roses”–though the latter one gained a lot of stature and prominence from Elvis Costello recording it a decade after Jones.
“He Stopped Loving Her Today” is a condensed version of Guy Clark’s “Let Him Roll”–without the words rolling into the gutter and without the Dallas whore.
March 12, 2025 @ 6:10 pm
Anybody read Coe’s book Cocaine and Rhinestones? I never listened to the podcast but grabbed the book when it came out. Haven’t started yet though.
March 12, 2025 @ 6:19 pm
Thanks for this Trigger. It is very interesting that this comes on the heels of the review of the new Isbell album, where there was so much debate in the comments about the merits of discussing the new songs in the context of Jason and Amanda’s divorce.
To me, this settles it!
I don’t really follow pop culture at all, and tend to roll my eyes at everyone who “wastes time” following the lives of actors, etc. But then I have to remind myself that country music is just pop culture too, and appreciating the music alongside the real lives of the singers and songwriters is half the fun. We’ve been doing it not only since George and Tammy, but since Hank and Audrey too. Jason and Amanda are just the next generation. I think we can be grateful that we have their story to follow along with new music in real time, rather than just telling stories and music from the past.
Tyler Coe went into to this in detail in Cocaine and Rhinestones when explaining how Billy Sherrill selected and released songs to compliment what fans were reading about George and Tammy in the tabloids.
Is it too voyeuristic and unfair to Jason and Amanda? I don’t think so- they are putting it all out there in music and movies and leading very public lives, and it is very lucrative for them. It’s part of the deal in being part of the entertainment industry.
March 12, 2025 @ 8:06 pm
A great duet. Surprisingly they never won a duet of the year award. It was a golden era of country duets and the field was rich with legends. Loretta and Conway were the biggest and won everything. Tammy’s and George’s best year was 1976 and by then, it was time for Willie and Waylon.
March 13, 2025 @ 9:17 am
Mr. Sociopath and Mrs. Psychopath.
March 13, 2025 @ 10:30 am
They were meant for each other.
Wasn’t Tammy married like six times?
March 13, 2025 @ 11:41 am
Something like that. Narcissism, perhaps?
She used to be a beauty queen, after all.
Never cared for her, I’m more impressed by Melba Montgomery and Sammi Smith, among several others.
And as much as I like George Jones – especially his first 10 years or so – he’s not one that I can listen to for hours upon hours. As soon as he found his voice ca. mid-60’s, he also became stale, recording whatever they put in front of his whiskey-soaked mind, often over-singing.
Reading his “autobiography” is to realize that the man was an idiot from the start, unable to learn anything from his behaviour, and hurting whoever crossing his path out of stupidity mostly, and sometimes by pure evil.
If he couldn’t sing like no other, he would have ended up in a ditch, one way or the other.
But he’s still one of my favorite singers, no doubt.