The Grand Tour

by Rich Kienzle

  Even before George came into the picture, Sherrill’s and Wynette’s stories were intertwined. Born in 1936 in Phil Campbell, Alabama, Billy Norris Sherrill was the son of an evangelist. He played piano behind his father and later worked in R&B bands. Arriving in Nashville, he landed a job at the short-lived Nashville studio opened by Sun Records owner Sam Phillips. Sherrill’s broader musical perspective gave him a contrarian view of most country music. Well versed in classical music, he also made no secret of his admiration for the work of wall-of-sound pop producer Phil Spector, who produced standards like the Crystals’ “He’s a Rebel” and the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby.” Spector was known for controlling every aspect of the music and surrounding vocalists with near-symphonic backing, a trait Sherrill would adapt to his own purposes.

  He joined Epic Records, a longtime subsidiary label of Columbia, in 1964. Initially, he produced records by the Staple Singers and others. It was a time Don Law still ruled the roost at Columbia Nashville, but Law, who produced records by bluesman Robert Johnson in the thirties, was nearing the company’s mandatory retirement age. With Law gradually stepping aside, the label brought in Bob Johnston from New York. Johnston, who coproduced Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, continued working with Dylan in Nashville and took on two of the label’s other top country acts: Johnny Cash and bluegrass stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Sherrill’s first real country success came in 1966 producing Louisiana singer David Houston’s hit ballad “Almost Persuaded,” cowritten by Sherrill and Glenn Sutton. The single reached No. 1 and earned a Grammy that quickly enhanced Sherrill’s stature around Nashville.

  As Sherrill listened to the young woman, despite some initial skepticism, he heard enough potential to bring her into the studio to record a demo. When she told him her name, he looked at her blond hair and ponytail (the latter was a hairpiece) and, thinking of Debbie Reynolds in the film Tammy, suggested Byrd looked “more like a Tammy.” Adding that to her middle name, Wynette, gave her a new identity. In September 1966, Sherrill produced her first single: the ballad “Apartment #9,” cowritten by Johnny Paycheck. It reached the country Top 50 and impressed many, George among them. Billy teamed her with Houston to record “My Elusive Dreams,” a ballad Sherrill cowrote with master composer Curly Putman, responsible for the timeless prison song “Green, Green Grass of Home.”

  As he did with his other artists, Sherrill refined the arrangements to frame Tammy’s voice, apparent on her second solo single, “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad,” which peaked at No. 3 in the spring of 1967. She began touring with Chapel, whom she married in Ringgold, Georgia, in April 1967. Their bus identified the act as the “Don Chapel–Tammy Wynette Show.” They were joined by Don’s teenage daughter, singer Donna Chapel. That summer, “My Elusive Dreams” topped the country charts, giving Tammy’s career a one-two punch, followed by “I Don’t Wanna Play House,” the Sherrill-Sutton ballad that became her first No. 1 and earned Sherrill his second Grammy. Tammy’s success reversed the dynamic with Chapel, who hadn’t really come close with his own efforts. She continued to rise with two more No. 1 singles: Sherrill and Sutton’s “Take Me to Your World” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” a ballad about dealing with children amid a dying marriage. It, too, was a tune that George loved.

  For the next decade or so, George would have a virtual merry-go-round of road managers. When Billy Wilhite departed for a time, George turned to a figure from his early career: Bill Starns, the son of Jack and Neva. As George crossed paths with Don and Tammy, he grew more attracted to her. For her part, she was thrilled by the attention from her favorite country singer. His efforts to encounter her whenever possible soon evolved into clandestine meetings. Starns did what he could to divert Don’s attention when George wanted to hook up with Tammy. Sometimes when the Chapels were on a bill with George, she’d ride in his Cadillac instead of in the bus with her husband. Tammy made sure Bill told George that she and Don were playing a Jaycees benefit at the high school in Red Bay, Alabama, the town where she grew up, to raise money for the school’s air-conditioning. George, not touring at that moment, arrived to hang out. Don introduced him from the stage and George sang a duet with Tammy. After the show, she kissed him on the cheek and said, “Love ya, George!”

  Over time, Tammy’s hairdressing experience led her to suggest George grow out his flattop haircut into a longer, slicked-down style. It made sense, since fashions were changing in the country field. Aside from Porter Wagoner, Little Jimmy Dickens, the Willis Brothers, and a few other holdouts, the rhinestone Nudie outfits George and other singers favored were giving way to more subtle, sophisticated western suits. George, too, would begin to abandon sequins in designing his show clothes.

  Pappy had more material for him to record, but handled paperwork in the control room while bass player Bob Moore, the session leader, and his fellow musicians did the heavy lifting. As usual, when Moore wasn’t available as leader, fiddler Tommy Jackson did the honors. A June 4 session turned out particularly well, with a daring Eddie Noack composition titled “Barbara Joy,” the carefully crafted saga of a man convicted and condemned to death for raping his very willing, enthusiastic paramour after her husband caught them in the act. The standout, however, was Chapel’s “When the Grass Grows over Me,” an eloquent weeper about a man so deeply committed to a woman who’s left him that he proclaims his love will end only with his death, a theme that would resurface in George’s repertoire in a more profound manner later. Chapel’s clear, unambiguous lyrics, articulating loss, pain, and undying passion, gave George the optimal framework to do what he did best, to probe—exhaustively—every emotional facet and deliver a compelling performance. The single topped out at No. 2 in early 1969.

  Pappy teamed George with Brenda Carter, who’d recorded for his D Records label in Houston, for “Milwaukee Here I Come,” a lightweight ditty by Hank Mills, who wrote the Del Reeves hit “Girl on the Billboard” and actor Robert Mitchum’s 1967 one-shot hit country single “Little Ole Wine Drinker, Me.” Despite being insubstantial, “Milwaukee” was engaging enough to reach the Top 20. George’s tongue-in-cheek delivery put it over as he delivered lines about trading a Ford for an Oldsmobile, adding, “I might get all drunked up and trade it for a Rolls.”

  Drunked up indeed. George had liquor in his veins at most sessions. The musicians were rarely teetotalers, given their grueling (and very lucrative) schedules of several sessions a day. But as part of the A-Team, they followed union rules and a code. For them, or any musician, the notion of simply walking out of a session was unthinkable. Dealing with George, however, presented challenges they didn’t face recording with Loretta Lynn or Eddy Arnold. When George’s drinking went into the red zone at one session, Moore set his own line of demarcation. “I made a reputation for walkin’ out on George Jones at two o’clock in the morning. We’d been workin’ all day long, and I had a nine o’clock session the next morning, and it was quarter till two and we had worked our butts off on this one song. George kept gettin’ drunker and drunker and finally got to where he couldn’t even get through the first line. But he just raised hell with us and [would] say, ‘Naw, I gotta do one more. I gotta do one more.’ I said, ‘I’m gonna give you this one more and if you don’t get it, I’m gone!’ And he didn’t hardly get through the intro, and I picked it up and left. And Pappy was in the control room, he come runnin’ out of the control room applauding, sayin’, ‘Thank God!’”

  Once George and Bill Starns dropped by Don and Tammy’s home to find “When the Grass Grows over Me” playing on the stereo. There was already stress in the house after a food-poisoning incident the night before put Tammy’s three daughters in the emergency room. Tammy later claimed Chapel couldn’t be found (his daughter Donna disagrees) and noted that George and Bill arrived at the hospital to help out. Don was home when George and Starns arrived. Liquor flowed as Tammy prepared to serve dinner. As everyone sat down, it became obvious Tammy and Don weren’t in a great place. They began arguing, Chapel agitated enoug
h to direct a torrent of verbal abuse, including the word bitch, at his wife. George quietly suggested Chapel shouldn’t talk to her that way. “What business is it of yours? She’s my wife!” Chapel angrily responded. That was all George needed to hear.

  Drunk and outraged, he stood up, flipped the table over, and hotly responded, “Because I love her and she’s in love with me, aren’t ya, Tammy?” After a pregnant pause, a stunned Tammy found herself replying, “Yes, I am.” George told her to collect Jackie, Gwen, and Tina before leaving. Well aware Don would call the police, he dropped Tammy and the girls at the Nashville Hilton. When authorities showed up at Brandywine Drive, he could honestly say Tammy and her daughters were not there. Tammy and Don planned a Mexican divorce.

  In her autobiography, Stand By Your Man, Tammy recounted her first night with George in detail, the two in the massive four-poster bed in his lavish Spanish-themed bedroom. A bottle of whiskey sat on a table at his bedside as he watched his favorite movie, the tragic 1962 boxing drama Requiem for a Heavyweight, starring Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney, and Julie Harris. Written by future Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, it told the tale of over-the-hill, honest Native American prizefighter Mountain Rivera (Quinn), afflicted with concussion-related dementia, facing blindness and ready to hang it up after losing his most recent bout in the seventh round. Maish Rennick, Rivera’s unscrupulous manager, played by Gleason, had insisted Rivera would go down earlier in the bout, betting against his own fighter. Ma Greeny, a female bookie known for ruthless debt collection, expects Rennick to cover her losses of around $3,000.

  Desperate to raise the cash, Rennick tries to keep Rivera working in a new guise: as a cartoonish wrestler in an Indian headdress. Army (Rooney), Rivera’s first-aid man and the only one on Rivera’s team truly concerned with his well-being, finds it all repellent. Seeking work through an unemployment agency, he’s aided by social worker Grace Miller (Harris), who pitches the gentle boxer for a job as a children’s camp counselor. After Rennick gets him drunk and Rivera embarrasses himself in front of the camp’s owners, the job offer vanishes. Before his first scheduled wrestling bout, Rivera discovers Rennick had bet against him at that last boxing match. Furious, he’s ready to walk until the bookie and her crew arrive to inflict extreme bodily harm on Rennick. Feeling perversely obligated, Rivera bitterly dons the headdress and returns to the ring as “Big Chief” Mountain Rivera to save his manager. A tearful, enraged Army stands by, barely able to watch his friend’s self-humiliation.

  Requiem touched an emotional chord in George, not unlike the way his own ballads affected fans. Tammy remembered, admiringly, that he had tears in his eyes as he drank and watched the film. What connection did he feel with Requiem that brought forth such a deep and emotional response? Was it merely a sad film that appealed to his simple, sentimental side and lifelong empathy for the underdog? Or did he identify with Rivera and the way his talents had been used and exploited beyond his control? The fighter was expected to perform on command, as George was, starting with those coerced performances for George Washington Jones in the Thicket. George, when drunk, may well have identified with the idea of rebelling, given his growing frustration with Pappy and Musicor and suspicions about Pappy’s side deals. Did he see Pappy as his own Maish Rennick?

  George and Tammy flew to Mexico in a day so she could divorce Chapel quickly. When they returned on August 22, Tammy, again stretching the truth, impulsively announced she and George had married. Once the lawyers jumped in, things took some surprising turns. Tammy, consulting with her attorney, discovered Tennessee didn’t recognize Mexican divorces. Chapel filed against her for desertion and adultery, plus an alienation-of-affection suit against George. The intrigue continued when Bill Starns, visiting Alabama, talked informally to an attorney who advised him that Alabama law barred remarriage for a full year following a divorce unless a judge gave specific approval. Marrying Don ten months after divorcing Euple Byrd meant the marriage to Chapel was invalid and easily annulled. Tammy gave him a limo, a home she owned, and a bus. Devastated by the breakup, Chapel fulfilled bookings with daughter Donna singing in Tammy’s place.

  George and Tammy still toured separately, George making surprise appearances at her shows when he could. But conflicts surfaced amid their contentment. Although part of it stemmed from George’s mood swings when he drank, a musical sticking point also surfaced. George, who’d loved Tammy’s early hits, heard a dub of her as-yet-unreleased recording of “Stand By Your Man” and let her know he didn’t care for it. It wasn’t the message of marital fidelity that bothered him. Given his biases in favor of fiddle-and-steel honky-tonk, he found the Sherrill treatment too slick. A furious Tammy began having misgivings about the song until Billy calmed her down. The public had the final say. Billboard showed the single reaching No. 1 November 23. It stayed there three weeks and became her signature song.

  They shared another milestone when George rejoined the Opry on January 6, 1969, the same night Tammy, Mel Tillis, and Dolly Parton became the show’s newest members. With their solo engagements completed, the couple could begin touring together. The first joint appearance came at the Playroom, an Atlanta club, in mid-February. Things got off to a good start until Tammy got another sample of George at his impulsive worst. After briefly going back to Nashville for a bit of studio work, she returned to Atlanta to find George angry and drunk. At their next performance, he walked off after only one song and, driven by his desire to escape far away, flew to Las Vegas with the club’s owner. Furious at the irresponsibility, she had to carry the show and wondered if there’d ever be a wedding. George returned a few days later, still surly. The next day, bright and upbeat, he told her to prepare for their wedding. The ceremony took place February 16 at the courthouse in Ringgold, Georgia, the same place where she’d married Chapel.

  George had given Shirley nearly everything in the divorce, but he had held on to a Lakeland, Florida, getaway home the couple had owned. How much they ever used it isn’t clear. George was renting it to friends in early 1969. The changes in his and Tammy’s lives and a desire for a respite from Nashville’s intrigues (not to mention overzealous fans and anxious songwriters) led them to move to Lakeland in March 1969. In spite of occasional blow-ups, they settled into a happy domesticity, hanging out with their neighbors, the Hyders. Cliff, a former navy man who suffered from ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease—and his wife, Maxine, grew close to George and Tammy. George’s compassion led him to work at getting Cliff, despondent over his debilitating affliction, into the world, be it on a fishing boat, dining out, or playing board games at home. Contented, even entranced, by their new environment, the couple decided to join the local business community. George purchased fifteen nearby acres for a trailer park, in part because Tammy wanted to move some of her family, including her mother, to the area. “Tammy’s Courts” was the name of the facility. Billy Wilhite moved there to manage the place.

  Musicor released “I’ll Share My World with You” as a single in late March, smart timing since it appeared to be tied to the recent wedding, foreshadowing Sherrill’s later strategy of tying the couple’s solo and duet singles to whatever transpired in their marriage. The same applied to George’s I’ll Share My World with You LP, released in June. George and Tammy were on the cover. Today, country singers routinely do cameos, known as “vocal events,” by appearing on records by other singers signed to different labels. That wasn’t the case in 1969, when the practice was rare and largely forbidden by record companies. With Tammy contracted to Epic and George still tied up with Musicor, she couldn’t openly record with her new husband, but that restriction didn’t apply to an album-cover photo that served to remind fans of the connection. They could also sing together on television. A joint appearance on the syndicated Wilburn Brothers Show soon after their marriage demonstrated their musical compatibility as they tore into an aggressive, joyous “Milwaukee Here I Come” that left the Brenda Carter duet in the dust. The couple enjoyed themselves onst
age so much that George began thinking beyond Pappy and Musicor, anxious to find a way he could partner with Tammy on records as well.

  Closer to home, George had to deal with something more personal: a problem involving nude candid photos Chapel took of Tammy when they were married and swapped with other men. In this case, the truth is all but impossible to determine. In her 1979 autobiography Stand By Your Man, Tammy insisted a fan at a concert showed her a nude shot of herself, clearly taken when she and Chapel were married. George claimed Billy Wilhite bought and destroyed the negatives. Chapel told Jimmy McDonough, Tammy’s biographer, the pictures were Polaroid instant photos with no negatives.

  In Lakeland, her own family now living nearby, Tammy happily welcomed members of George’s family from Vidor. Bryan and Jeffrey came in, as did Clara, then contending with cardiac issues. Tammy, who loved Clara, did all she could to make everyone comfortable, yet Clara was stunned by the lavish lifestyle George and her new daughter-in-law enjoyed, aeons from what she knew in the Thicket, Vidor, or anywhere else. Her steadfast religious beliefs made her averse to gambling, but she still enjoyed attending the local dog races when she visited. George and Tammy once took their mothers to a Polynesian restaurant in Tampa that George loved. The teetotaling Clara sipped champagne and in her usual direct manner, commented, “Glenn, that stuff tastes just like vinegar!” She was amazed that he left a $40 tip on the $150 dinner tab. She remained the one woman who could calm George when no one else could.