Keeping Up With Jones

Fluffy, hot biscuits, fresh out of the oven and smothered with redeye gravy, with a thick slab of smoked ham on the side, are a great start to any day. But the biscuits and gravy I am eyeing are hardly standard fare. They are the signature menu item at the Loveless Cafe in Nashville, the ultimate comfort food in my ultimate comfort city. After 30 years of visiting Nashville, I have finally arrived at the home of the gods—a white clapboard café attached to what once was a motel way out on the edge of town by the Natchez Trace. I am on the verge of understanding just why an ideal day in Music City USA begins here.

Yet as pleasing to the eye and mouthwatering as the biscuits and redeye gravy may be, I am not able to clean my plate. I seem to have developed a mild case of the nerves. Chalk up my condition to the anticipation of meeting my tour guide. If you're going to see Nashville right, there is no better way to experience it than with George Jones, the King of Country Music, leading the way.

George Jones has spent most of his adult life in recording studios around Nashville singing classic cheatin' songs in a powerful wail, from between clenched teeth, that would give Pavarotti pause. His record—or records—speaks volumes: 166 hit singles, from "White Lightning," "Golden Ring," and "He Stopped Loving Her Today" to "(We're Not) The Jet Set," "High Tech Redneck," and "I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair." Enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame, he is one of a select few country stars to receive the National Medal of Arts.

As soon as I spy him driving into the Loveless parking lot behind the wheel of a Ford van with his wife, Nancy, riding shotgun and his two most trusted backup singers and longtime pals, Sheri Copeland and Barry Smith, in back, I apologize to the waitress for the half-finished plate. "George Jones just ruined my appetite," I tell her, smiling sweetly.

The NO SHOW personalized license plate on the van is a joking reference to his proclivity for missing gigs back when he was just as famous for his wild ways as he was for his music. He's able to laugh at that reputation now. Newfound sobriety and a renewed work ethic following a near-fatal car accident—while driving drunk and talking on a cell phone in 1999—have energized him. These days he doesn't just show up; he plays for half an hour longer.

At 74, The Possum, as he is known, could easily be resting on his laurels and letting his catalog, including his latest album, George Jones: Hits I Missed…And One I Didn't, do the talking. Instead, he's on the road every weekend (nearly 100 shows last year) and spends much of his downtime as he did the previous day, laying down tracks in the studio with young gun Blake Shelton and old-school honky-tonker John Anderson, as well as working on a collaborative venture with his fellow living legend Merle Haggard. And he still manages to squeeze in time to show off the real-deal version of his hometown to a visitor who thinks he's seen it all. Within minutes of shaking hands, George has me confessing to a limited familiarity with Nashville.

Rise and Shine

"I don't know all the history of this place," George says, smiling shyly, as he surveys the Loveless lobby within arm's reach of the autographed glossy photo of George and Nancy on the wall of country music stars behind the register. That's understandable, because the Loveless opened its doors in 1951, four years before George hit town as a wet-behind-the-ears kid from the Big Thicket of southeast Texas by way of Beaumont. But he does know the Loveless is his kind of place. "We used to come out here all the time with different people back in the '60s, for the biscuits, the ham, for a little bit of everything," he says, patting his ample belly—food is one of the renewed pleasures following his renouncement of vices. "It's just a good homey atmosphere, real country."

Many of his fellow diners at the Loveless happen to be huge George Jones fans.