Keeping Up With Jones

So it shouldn't be too surprising that many of his fellow diners happen to be huge George Jones fans. Before he and Nancy can finish their breakfast, fans are lined up with pen and paper in hand for an autograph. George obliges each and every one. One older man wearing a gimme cap wants to talk literature when he recognizes the familiar face.

"Hey there!" he shouts, grinning excitedly. "You don't know me, but I just read your book I Lived to Tell It All. You were the wildest, man!"

George manages a sheepish chuckle. "I ain't supposed to be here, I tell you that."

"I related to a lot of that," the fan tells him. "I'm a survivor, too." Gimme Cap bought the autobiography because he wanted to get to know George before he saw him for the first time at a recent concert at the Ryman Auditorium. The fan couldn't have picked a better place. No one knows that better than George. The Mother Church of Country Music just so happens to be the next stop on his Nashville tour itinerary.

Tapping Toes and Tapping Roots

The Ryman opened in 1892 as the Union Gospel Tabernacle and hosted the Grand Ole Opry during its glory years, from 1943 until 1974, when the Opry moved to the suburbs. The venerable red-brick structure fell into disuse for almost 20 years before it was revived as Nashville's finest all-purpose concert venue, even hosting the Grand Ole Opry again every now and then. "The Ryman is second only to the Mormon Tabernacle in natural acoustics," Nancy Jones points out.

Her husband is beaming at the building when we pull into the parking lot. "It's my favorite place to play," George says. He's considerably more relaxed now than he was way back when he was riding his first hit, "Why Baby Why," and he was very, very scared.

"George Morgan and Little Jimmy Dickens were standing off to the side, talking to me," he explains, walking into the sacred space after signing an autograph for a little girl in a wheelchair at the entrance. He remembers becoming especially nervous when the stagehands informed him he couldn't play guitar because he wasn't a member of the local musicians' union. "Hell, I didn't know what I was going to do with my hands," he recalls. "I was already shaking. When they told me that, I like to had a heart attack. Ernest Tubb was on stage singing, and right when he finished his song, they called me, and I said, 'I just can't go out there. I don't have anything to do with my hands.' As bad as I wanted to be on the Opry for the first time, I didn't want to if I had to go out there like that. Dickens or Morgan—one of 'em, I can't remember which—throwed their guitar over my shoulder and said, 'We'll take responsibility. You go ahead.' So I did. It worked out."

It sure did.

Deep in the Heart of Nashville

In a blink, George ducks out a side door of the Ryman, walks down a set of stairs, and crosses the alley into the rear entrance of an establishment identified as Tootsie's Orchid Lounge. It is a route he's taken many times, along with a number of country stars, back in the days when the Opry was in residence at the Ryman.

"We used to slide through the back door, have a beer or something," George mentions as he walks briskly through the darkened bar, prompting heads to turn and cries of "George!" to erupt. This time, though, he's just passing through, heading straight for the front door and Broadway, Nashville's main drag. He's not much on honky-tonks these days, and if he's going to drink, it will be George Jones's White Lightning bottled water, thank you very much.