George Jones’ personal and career escapades are the stuff of countrymusic legend.

The first five times I went to see George Jones, he didn’t bother to show up. In those days, promoters rarely knew in advance where the unreliable Jones might be come showtime, so road trips became crapshoots. Our enthusiastic, traveling fan club frequently placed bets on whether or not Jones would appear. On one evening in 1981, the Jones’ hit “Tonight, I Just Don’t Give a Damn” blasted from the car stereo as we drove to Meridian, Mississippi, to give him another chance. There at the city auditorium a posted sign read “Tonight’s Concert Canceled.” A friend, who at the time managed the Longbranch Saloon in Avondale, later said that Jones and the band stopped in Birmingham for lunch on the way to Meridian that day. When asked to suggest a nearby place to drink, a waitress at a local barbecue joint recommended the Longbranch. By late afternoon, a Jones band member reminded the entourage that they had a show to play three hours away in Mississippi. An intoxicated Jones merely shrugged and laughed, “Well, it looks like we ain’t gonna make it!”

Jones disappeared on us again 20 years ago in Birmingham. Several thousand waited inside Boutwell Auditorium as his band played Jones’ introduction for the fourth time. Disgusted, the guitarist finally gave up and told the throng, “Looks like George ain’t gonna make it tonight.” The singer reportedly was out of his head drunk at a popular Southside pub the entire time.

As early as 1967, Jones’ roller coaster life of unpredictability began to zoom out of control. According to the biography, George Jones: The Saga of an American Singer, during an alcohol-fueled argument, Jones shoved soon-to-be third wife Tammy Wynette down the aisle of their tour bus. The band had to lock Jones in the back of the bus, which was proudly emblazoned “Mr. & Mrs. Country Music,” eventually letting him out to force him onstage. The singer performed one song, then left, leaving Wynette to finish the show alone. Four days later, he resurfaced to tell her their impending wedding was off. The next morning he woke up sober, found Wynette, and whisked her across the Georgia state line for an impromptu civil wedding ceremony in the aptly named town of Ringgold. It was the third marriage for each.

The five-year marriage was not a pretty sight. Notorious for destroying the couple’s home on more than one occasion, Jones frequently smashed television sets, hurled whiskey bottles, and even once fired a shotgun at Wynette as she fled from their house in the middle of the night in her pajamas. Wynette once hid the keys to Jones’ fleet of luxury automobiles to prevent him from riding into town to his favorite bar. He simply hot-wired his riding lawn mower, to which the keys had also been hidden, and made the 10-mile trek anyway.

Jones’ steady diet of booze, cocaine, and amphetamines soon fueled even more notorious behavior. One night in Mississippi, Jones was pulled over for speeding. Arresting officers reportedly scraped a sizeable quantity of cocaine off the floormat of his Lincoln Continental. Less than 24 hours after his release from jail, the singer lost control of the Lincoln and barrel-rolled down the same Mississippi highway. Jones checked into Hillcrest Hospital in Birmingham soon afterward for rest and evaluation.

By 1980, Jones was homeless, living out of his car and seedy motels. He was once discovered by police after having apparently ridden around for days in a Cadillac littered with whiskey bottles, empty sardine cans, and a life-size cardboard figure of Hank Williams, Sr., sitting upright next to him. Jones eventually created a couple of imaginary friends named “Deedoodle the Duck” and “The Old Man,” imitating their voices (which sounded like Donald Duck and Walter Brennan) as he frequently carried on a three-way conversation with himself, often on stage.

In 1981, the entire country finally got to witness what transpires when George Jones descends into hell. Jones had been pulled over by Tennessee patrolmen for erratic driving. Caught on film by a Nashville television station cameraman driving by, an obviously drunken Jones, hair disheveled and eyes bloodshot, screamed and lunged at the camera crew. He was led away in handcuffs as millions looked on.

George Jones scored his first million seller in 1982 with his signature hit, “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” It was a song he absolutely loathed. His career appeared to be on the rebound until an appearance with Tammy Wynette on “The Tonight Show.” Jones stopped midway through the couple’s duet of “Two-Story House” to confess to the nationwide audience that he couldn’t remember the lyrics.

After three years of trying, I finally saw George Jones in 1984 in Columbus, Georgia. Though inebriated, Jones’ voice was mesmerizing that night, his silver hair sprayed to immaculate perfection. No singer carries a note like Jones. His voice is devoid of the vibrato embraced by most crooners; listeners are treated instead to a pure nasal tenor that has been long-admired by vocal stylists ranging from Frank Sinatra to Waylon Jennings. (Jennings once told a writer curious about the diverse styles in country music, “Hoss, if we could all sound like who we wanted to, we’d all sound like George Jones.”)

Jones finally addressed his drinking problem, and through the ’90s became as reliable as a Chet Atkins guitar lick. An album of duets recorded in 1992 with a variety of musical heavyweights included rock ‘n’ roll’s poster child for decadence, Keith Richards. According to a Nashville recording engineer, Jones was late to the studio reportedly having driven around the city for hours to avoid the temptations that Richards frequently brought to recording sessions. Jones finally showed up just as Richards was wheeling a fully stocked portable bar into the studio (Jones later assessed Richard’s vocal performance as “so odd it sounded good.”).

Then two years ago he crashed his car into a bridge, blaming the wreck on a cell-phone conversation with his daughter. A half-empty bottle of vodka found beneath the Cadillac’s seat told the truth, however. Rushed to the hospital in critical condition, it was doubtful that Jones would survive this latest episode, as his long-abused liver was severely lacerated as a result of the accident. A couple of weeks later he walked out of the hospital, and was performing again in two months.

A friend’s grandmother once encountered Jones in the hallway of University Hospital’s psychiatric unit. It was in the early 1980s during one of the singer’s extended stays in Birmingham to get his life-long demons under control. The old woman stared and excitedly exclaimed, “You’re George Jones!” Jones slowly nodded his head and quietly replied, “Yes, ma’am, I am. And I’m a sick man.” &

George Jones will perform at Looney’s Tavern Amphitheatre in Double Springs, Alabama, on Saturday, September 1, 8:00 p.m. Lawn seats are available for $17.00. Call 1-800-566-6397 or visit www.bham.net/looneys for further info. Looney’s is located at 22400 Hwy 278 East. Jones is also scheduled to perform in Oneonta on October 27 at a venue yet to be announced. Check www.pollstar.com for further announcements.