Memories of Us
Memories of Us | ||||
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Studio album by George Jones | ||||
Released | September 7, 1975 (1975-09-07) | |||
Recorded | April 1975 | |||
Studio | Columbia, Nashville | |||
Genre | Country | |||
Label | Epic | |||
Producer | Billy Sherrill | |||
George Jones chronology | ||||
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Singles from Memories of Us | ||||
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Memories of Us is an album by American country music artist George Jones, released in 1975 on the Epic Records label. It peaked at #43 on the Billboard Country Albums chart. It is Jones’ 51st Album Release.
Background
Memories of Us was Jones's first release after his divorce from Tammy Wynette. The years ahead would be an unpleasant time for Jones, to say the least, and the singer would soon begin his long, slow descent to the bottom. Jones scored two number-one hits in 1974 ("The Grand Tour" and "The Door"), but Memories of Us failed to produce any hits and the album stalled on the Billboard charts at number 43. In the liner notes to the 1983 Jones compilation Anniversary - 10 Years of Hits, producer Billy Sherrill writes that he was surprised that the song "Memories of Us", a personal favorite, failed as a single, and in his 1996 autobiography I Lived to Tell It All, Jones admitted that at the time he "constantly feared that my career, like my three marriages, was over. I had nothing left but my name, and my name was associated with missing personal appearances and not paying my debts."
Recording and composition
Although Jones's life was in disarray, his singing remained as strong as ever, and the acrimony between him and Wynette in the aftermath of their bitter divorce made the songs he sang sound more authentic to his fans. Memories of Us actually features two songs written by the former couple: the up-tempo drinking song "Bring On the Clowns" and the eerily titled "She Should Belong to Me". Jones also had a hand in writing "A Touch of Wilderness" with Earl Montgomery, but it was his performance on the song "I Just Don't Give a Damn", which he wrote with Jimmy Peppers, that remains - at least in hindsight - one of the most riveting performances of his career. Thom Jurek of AllMusic calls the song "the bitterest cut Jones ever recorded. He claims he wrote it at 3 a.m. in the aftermath of the divorce, and it comes right from the Hank Williams tradition of catharsis songs. Jones condemns everyone and everything including himself. As he denies his shortcomings, he fires back simultaneously - with razor-sharp fineness - his anger. That fiddle floating in the background offers a portrait of loneliness and rage that is unbridled and self-destructive in the classic honky tonk style." In the liner notes to the 1999 Sony reissue of the album (which paired it with 1976's The Battle), Daniel Cooper writes that "I Just Don't Give a Damn" "hearkens back to the sort of material Jones's idol Hank Williams used to write when Hank was feeling his most embittered. In his prolific career, Jones has made dozens of bone-chilling recordings that languish as forgotten, seemingly throwaway album tracks and B-sides...Yet all these years later 'I Just Don't Give a Damn' rings harrowingly true and honest, like a sketched, 3 a.m. self-portrait by one of America's greatest artists." Remarkably, the song was ignored for years, with the singer commenting in his memoir, "'I Just Don't Give a Damn' was my eighty-sixth single record. It was on the Billboard survey for only two weeks and peaked at number ninety-two on the top 100. I had never released a record on a major label that did so poorly." The song was included on the 2006 Legacy compilation The Essential George Jones and a rare clip of the singer performing the song in 1975 at his Possum Holler club in Nashville is available on YouTube.
Reception
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [1] |
Roy Kasten of Amazon.com states "...Memories of Us is relentlessly dark, distinguished by the unbearably sad 'A Goodbye Joke' and 'What I Do Best,' in which pathos becomes great art. Surrounded by Sherrill's often-breathtaking production, Jones's voice never sounded so plangent, so aching." AllMusic describes the album as "one of those records that cannot be played all the time, but when in the proper space for a heartbreak record, none will fit the bill better."
Track listing
- "Memories of Us" (Dave Kirby, Glenn Martin)
- "Touch of Wilderness" (Jody Emerson)
- "A Goodbye Joke" (Earl Montgomery, Charlene Montgomery, George Jones)
- "What I Do Best" (Roger Bowling)
- "She Should Belong to Me" (George Jones, Tammy Wynette)
- "Have You Seen My Chicken" (Earl Montgomery, Jody Emerson)
- "She Once Made a Romeo Cry" ("Wild" Bill Emerson, Jody Emerson)
- "Bring on the Clowns" (Billy Sherrill, George Jones, Tammy Wynette)
- "Hit and Run" (Earl Montgomery)
- "I Just Don't Give a Damn" (Jimmy Peppers, George Jones)
References
- ^ Memories of Us at AllMusic
External links
- George Jones' Official Website
- Record Label
- v
- t
- e
- Grand Ole Opry's New Star
- Country Church Time
- White Lightning and Other Favorites
- George Jones Salutes Hank Williams
- George Jones Sings Country and Western Hits
- George Jones Sings from the Heart
- George Jones Sings Bob Wills
- Homecoming in Heaven
- My Favorites of Hank Williams
- I Wish Tonight Would Never End
- George Jones Sings Like the Dickens!
- I Get Lonely in a Hurry
- The Race Is On
- Mr. Country & Western Music
- New Country Hits
- Old Brush Arbors
- Trouble in Mind
- Country Heart
- Love Bug
- I'm a People
- We Found Heaven Right Here on Earth at "4033"
- Walk Through This World with Me
- George Jones Sings the Songs of Dallas Frazier
- The George Jones Story
- My Country
- If My Heart Had Windows
- I'll Share My World with You
- Where Grass Won't Grow
- Will You Visit Me on Sunday
- George Jones with Love
- George Jones Sings the Great Songs of Leon Payne
- George Jones (We Can Make It)
- A Picture of Me (Without You)
- Nothing Ever Hurt Me (Half as Bad as Losing You)
- In a Gospel Way
- The Grand Tour
- Memories of Us
- The Battle
- Alone Again
- I Wanta Sing
- Bartender's Blues
- My Very Special Guests
- I Am What I Am
- Still the Same Ole Me
- Shine On
- Jones Country
- You've Still Got a Place in My Heart
- Ladies' Choice
- Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes
- Wine Colored Roses
- Too Wild Too Long
- One Woman Man
- You Oughta Be Here with Me
- And Along Came Jones
- Walls Can Fall
- High-Tech Redneck
- The Bradley Barn Sessions
- I Lived to Tell It All
- It Don't Get Any Better Than This
- Cold Hard Truth
- The Rock: Stone Cold Country 2001
- The Gospel Collection
- Hits I Missed...And One I Didn't
- Burn Your Playhouse Down – The Unreleased Duets
- What's in Our Heart (with Melba Montgomery)
- Close Together (As You and Me) (with Melba Montgomery)
- Bluegrass Hootenanny (with Melba Montgomery)
- George Jones & Gene Pitney – For the First Time! Two Great Stars
- George Jones & Gene Pitney – Recorded in Nashville, Tennessee! (with Gene Pitney)
- It's Country Time Again! (with Gene Pitney)
- Double Trouble (with Johnny Paycheck)
- A Taste of Yesterday's Wine (with Merle Haggard)
- Kickin' Out the Footlights...Again (with Merle Haggard)
- George Jones & The Smoky Mountain Boys
- Hillbilly Hit Parade
- George Jones Singing 14 Top Country Song Favorites
- George Jones Sings His Greatest Hits
- The Fabulous Country Music Sound of George Jones
- Long Live King George
- The Crown Prince of Country Music
- A King & Two Queens (with Judy Lynn and Melba Montgomery)
- Blue & Lonesome
- Heartaches & Tears
- Famous Country Duets
- Hits by George
- The Best of George Jones
- All-Time Greatest Hits, Vol. 1
- Encore
- Anniversary – 10 Years of Hits
- By Request
- Super Hits
- Friends in High Places
- Super Hits, Volume 2
- 16 Biggest Hits
- 50 Years of Hits
- God's Country: George Jones and Friends