The Legend of George Jones: His Life and Death

by Peanutt Montgomery

  It seems George was always on the short end, while the others made all the money. Because George signed the contracts, he was left to fulfill them. Many times it was too late when he found out the deals were bad. He would rebel and refuse to honor his signed agreements and would wind up being sued for thousands and thousands of dollars.

  I never could understand why anybody wanted to be a partner with George Jones. If he was such a drunk, a no show, an idiot, and a bad guy, then why did everybody want a piece of him? Think about it! He was a product you could market for money. They sold his famous name, but he never seemed to gain. The managers said George Jones was broke, but they were never broke! They made their living off of managing a broke man who never showed up for shows and was always drunk. If this is all true, then where did they get their money? Makes you wonder doesn’t it?

  George was up to his neck in IOU’s and down to his last dime. He had to file for bankruptcy. How did he get in this kind of shape? It is always puzzling when big stars end up in bankruptcy court after they have made millions and millions of dollars. Most of these people are not good businessmen and women, and they waste money. This was not George’s situation. He was manipulated and cheated out of his money and ended up owing the people who cheated him.

  George was like a big company that went broke while all the people working got rich. That can happen if the employees are stealing seventy-five percent of the revenue.

  Drinking was George’s nemesis. When he would get on a drunken spree that lasted a week, he would end up owing somebody a lot of money. He ended up with the blame, shame, and bad name, but his co-workers never suffered; they got paid.

  George needed help, but it wasn’t the crooks who stole from him that came to help him; it was his dear friends in the music business that showed up. Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and others that loved him came to his rescue. No one who got rich off George’s career raised a finger to help him. His real friends who could relate to what was happening to him became a light in George’s darkest hours.

  George was too good for his own sake. He was 24-karat gold to the gold digger. It wasn’t that George was ignorant, dumb, or naive. He had a philosophy that when he paid people to do a job, he shouldn’t have to worry about it. The problem was he hired the wrong people. They drew out his gullible weaknesses and laughed at him all the way to the bank.

  Part of the fun of being a star is having people at your beck and call. Everything is set up for you, and you shouldn’t have to worry about anything except showing up and performing. George struggled with the people who worked for him. It seemed that every time somebody left him, he would owe the person a lot of money.

  When George moved away from Florence, Alabama, he didn’t owe Peanutt and I a dime, and we never tried to fabricate or find something we could bill him for just because he would pay it. Our friendship was free and along with that came a lot of free services. We didn’t make him pay us for the little things we did. We were a lot like George. We trusted people and took them at their word. We never had a contract of any kind with George on songs we co-wrote with him, or any other business we did.

  We knew who was getting paid and when it came time for everybody working on a project to get the credit they deserved, they all got it. Peanutt would have given more to George than he would ever have taken, and George knew that. You won’t do wrong to someone if you love them for whom they are and not because they have money. That’s the way George was. He felt everybody thought just like him, so he trusted people way too much.

  Shug Baggot was aware of the harm cocaine was doing to George. He didn’t care because George was a big user, and Shug was a seller. Why would Shug want George to stop? Who wants to lose a good customer like George? George was hitting the drug every day, and nobody cared. In fact, I believe they may have wanted him to die. Who knows what they were hoping for? Maybe a large life insurance policy, George’s expensive jewelry, or a whole lot of other things they could gain from his death.

  George’s managers robbed him blind, but the worst thing that happened to George was that he was robbed of the fellowship of his dearest friends. Peanutt and I were not allowed to get near George, and that long close relationship we had with our dear friend just went away because of these evil concoctions that destroyed our friendship. We know George would have called us or come to visit us if he could have gotten away with it but for some unknown reason, he would suffer consequences if he tried to see us.

  The so-called managers managed to get him into debt. He owed Tammy $36,000.00 in back child support. He thought his managers were taking care of Georgette. He owed a big bill at a furniture store that he thought had been paid. He was shocked when the IRS came after him for back taxes he thought had been paid. I know this personally because I was there when George told his managers to pay these bills.

  George was an emotional wreck. He had been blindsided over and over. He made money, but the money was going for everything except the bills he owed, and the stress and burdens he was carrying made him just about give up on everybody and everything.

  One of the happiest times of George’s life was his marriage to Tammy Wynette. Even though I’ve spent a lot of time in this book talking about that marriage and the stories that followed, I know some of his fondest memories were during the time he was with Tammy.

  I loved spending Christmas with George and Tammy at their house. George was as much fun as the kids. He enjoyed watching the girls rip open their presents, and he seemed to relish the moments as much as if he were receiving the gifts himself.

  This was prime time for those children. Their parents were on the road a lot, so being home and gathering around the Christmas tree for some real family fun was as good as it could get for those children.

  There was plenty of fun and plenty to eat. Tammy loved cooking, and she was very good at it. She would bake all sorts of cookies, candies, melts, cakes, pies, and banana pudding. She made her Christmas meals with good old country cooking. Her favorites were chicken and dumplings, ham, pinto bean, and cornbread. She had that country cooking knowledge of how to bring a meal together that would absolutely make you glad when you sat down at the table. Al Gallico, Tammy’s business partner, was eating with us one Christmas, and he took a piece of her cornbread, wrapped it in tinfoil, put it in his suit coat pocket, and took it back to New York with him. That’s how good she could cook. Al said he had eaten at the finest restaurants in the world, but he never found anything that was as tasty as Tammy’s cornbread.

  Tammy’s cooking speaks for itself, and we talk about the good food she made to this day. She was not only a great cook, but she was a great wife and mother. I can testify to that fact because Peanutt and I were with George and Tammy almost every day of their married life.

  Peanutt and I were very close to George before he and Tammy were married, and we remained close friends with George after they divorced. We would love to have remained friends with Tammy as well after the divorce, but the divorce caused so many divisions it was impossible.

  Peanutt and I did not want George and Tammy to split up. We loved both of them, and we loved them as a couple. They loved each other, but just like every marriage, there were problems that needed to be worked out. They worked at it for several years until the walls of their marriage came tumbling down because the jealous songwriters started putting negative thoughts in Tammy’s head about George. They knew what would upset Tammy and how to make her take action. Their efforts worked well to their own benefit. If you don’t think so, look at what happened after they got Peanutt and I out of the way.

  George Richey took over, and he could not make it obvious at the time, but he had his plan in mind a long time before the divorce. I want to set the record straight, right here, right now.

  I never ever saw George Jones with another woman while he and Tammy Wynette were married, and I was with them every day. When George and Tammy were fighting, George would often leave the house and go get drunk. Most of the
time when that happened, he was at our house. We’d play music, cut up, act like fools, tease each other, talk about the miserable businessmen they both knew, and George and Peanutt would drink.

  Those jealous people who wanted to destroy our relationship created their own stories and told them to Tammy. They used their lies as a weapon and as tools to separate George and Tammy. They painted a picture in Tammy’s mind that George and Peanutt were out womanizing and drinking and living it up. That’s absolutely a lie.

  In the first place, I hated alcohol and fought Peanutt tooth and nail about it. Our biggest troubles were over Peanutt’s drinking habits. The reason Peanutt and I have stayed married for forty-five years is because we have hardly been apart. We love each other. I didn’t care what the cost was, or what people thought of me. I was determined that Peanutt Montgomery was not going do things without me if he was going live with me. Peanutt knew I’d go to any amount of trouble to find out where he was, and what he was doing. He knew he’d better be where he was supposed to be (the few times he was somewhere without me), and he knew I’d check him out and make sure he was there. I got criticized a lot for the way I was, but I didn’t care. I was looking out for the man I loved, and I would go to the ends of the earth to protect our marriage.

  George knew me well enough to know it would be hell to pay if he tried to involve other women with Peanutt. That was the one thing that would have made me put a stop to their friendship. George and Peanutt were very seldom anywhere by themselves. I would never trust two men off together drinking with no one looking over them. George didn’t care about me tagging along, and neither did Peanutt. It wouldn’t have mattered if they did care; I would still have been with them. Peanutt came first in my life. I laid everything else aside and took charge of our marriage. I appreciated Peanutt’s talents and respected his job of writing songs, but none of that gave him the right to do as he pleased. If he had not been a drinker, I would have trusted him more, but I’d seen too much.

  It blew my mind when I found out George Richey and Tammy Wynette were dating. George Richey was supposed to be George Jones’s friend. While George and Tammy were married, George Richey and his wife Shelia were always around the offices with us, and they would come to George and Tammy’s house, and we would eat dinner together. Shelia even babysat with True (our daughter) several times. She was a real sweet lady and absolutely idolized her husband. He was her life. Sheila’s parents were deceased, and she had no other family except a brother who lived in Los Angeles, and she very seldom had contact with him. She was Al Gallico’s Secretary. She dated George Richey for eight years before she married him, and it was the happiest day of her life.

  Sheila was my friend and when we lived in Nashville she and George Richey came to our house often because George Richey wanted to write songs with Peanutt. They did co-write songs but only a few.

  When all hell broke loose with George and Tammy, George Richey was sitting there ready to go. He had a master plan, and he was a con-artist who could make them work. Shelia was placed on the road with Tammy. Shelia helped Tammy in every way she could (unaware of what her real purpose of being with Tammy was).

  Shelia helped with the girls, and she was Tammy’s Matron of Honor at her wedding to Mike Tomlin. She was a loyal friend to Tammy. She turned against me when George and Tammy divorced. Shelia and I had been very close friends but to satisfy Tammy, she had to turn her back on me. Tammy had been told that George and I were having an affair, and that I was the one George wanted to be around instead of Peanutt. There were all kinds of lies told on me, but that was the master plan. George Jones would never have treated Peanutt Montgomery the way George Richey treated George Jones.

  I would never have had an affair with George Jones. George was Peanutt’s best friend, so how sorry a person would I have been if I had done that? George respected me as a person too much to come on to me. I’ll admit that I loved George Jones. I loved him before he ever married Tammy. I loved him while they were married. I loved him after they divorced, and I loved him til the day he died, and I still love him. It’s no secret that I’ve ever tried to hide. There is nothing wrong with loving somebody, and it’s not because he is a legend or a country music star. I’d love him just as much if he were homeless.

  I knew George Jones, and I loved and respected him as the person I knew he was. I could care less who likes it, and who doesn’t. I’ll always love and respect George but make sure you understand me. Love does not have to involve sex. I did not have a sexual type relationship with George. The good part of the whole thing is that I know the truth and better yet, George knew the truth, and anybody that would accuse us of such a relationship had to have some kind of ulterior motive.

  George and Tammy divorced. The relationship between George, Tammy, Peanutt, and me was dissolved. George Richey married Tammy. George Richey’s ex-wife, Shelia, died (mysteriously). Tammy Wynette Richey died (mysteriously). George Richey gained all of Tammy’s career assets and achievements. George Richey married a young woman, who was Tammy’s friend. They had a child and moved to Texas. George Richey died in Texas. The master plan worked exactly the way it was planned.

  I feel so sorry for Tammy’s girls. They were deprived of any of their mother’s belongings and keepsakes. They received absolutely nothing from Tammy Wynette’s estate. George Richey gave each of them five-thousand dollars. That’s it! It is a shame for the girls to have that happen to them, but that’s the way it is with a con-artist; nothing or no one gets in the way of what they want, including cheating the children out of what rightly belonged to them.

  Tammy died. The entire estate was executed by George Richey, and there was seemingly no reprieve. He controlled and dispersed the inheritance only in the direction he wanted it to go. Tammy’s girls were cheated out of what was rightfully theirs, and it is one of the worst situations of greed I have ever witnessed. They never asked for much. All they wanted were little things like their mother’s favorite necklace, scrapbook, photo album, or diary. What child wouldn’t be granted those things? What kind of person would put more value than a child’s memories on those things? “My God,” I thought many times, how could anybody be so cold and greedy? It makes me sick, and Tammy would be clawing her way out of the grave if she knew how her girls were treated and cheated. It’s absolutely sinful. My heart goes out to Gwen, Jackie, Tina, and Georgette.

  I don’t put anything past a person who loves prestige, money, and control over all else; especially, when his life is hampered by someone with severe health problems. The illness becomes a burden when there is some young, pretty, and healthy person waiting deceitfully on the side, so he can proceed with his plans when the person standing in the way is gone.

  In Tammy’s situation, a simple divorce would create too many losses for the perpetrator to absorb. In my mind, no doubt there was a plan that needed to materialize, and it all came about after Tammy died. The lights came on, so the world could see what really happened. I don’t think there’s a person alive who knew Tammy that is in the dark concerning how Tammy died, and what her life was like at the end.

  George and Nancy Jones were right there to support the children Tammy left behind. They demonstrated true love and a heart for the well being of those kids. George helped raise those girls, and he knew all four of them were good girls. He loved them.

  Life is a beautiful and wonderful thing but unfortunately, there are people who do awful and hurtful things, and there is seemingly no good moral or logical reason to their motives. If there is one thing I have learned from George Jones, it’s the statement he made to me, “Don’t ever hold a grudge.” I do not hold any malice against anybody for the lies, the gossip, the rumors, the false accusations, and the misleading statements that were directed and made against Peanutt and me. I do forgive them, but I will never be associated with those people ever again. Just because Jesus said for us to forgive our enemies and those people who have hurt us, doesn’t mean we have to kick around with them all day. I know
who these people are even though many of them don’t think I do, and I in no way will I ever again get involved with any of them in any form or fashion.

  The part that floors me is that after their friendship with George Jones ended, these people who betrayed us tried to strike up a new relationship with Peanutt and me. They acted as if nothing ever happened, and they did no wrong. In my opinion, all they wanted was to exploit our connections and get themselves in the limelight for their own benefit. Sorry, but that will never happen. When we lost our friendship with George Jones through the deceit and lies of so-called friends, it was the end for us!

  I want to make sure everybody reading this story understands that Peanutt and I loved Tammy Wynette. I am obviously still hurting because of the way our friendship ended, but I loved and respected her. Of course we loved George Jones, but we couldn’t stop a large and powerful force that was intent on getting us out of the picture. The movement was so powerful that it broke up George and Tammy’s marriage, and it destroyed our beautiful loving friendship.

  The whole program was destroyed. Peanutt and Charlene were gone, Billy Sherrill was gone, and who was left? One man took control of everything, including the songwriting, the booking, the producing, and ended up with everything George and Tammy built. The ravaging of the Jones/Wynette children didn’t end with Tammy.

  The loss of George Jones has also been a very painful experience for all those who loved him, but the public doesn’t know half of the story concerning the pain and suffering his children Jeffrey, Brian, and Georgette have endured over the loss of their daddy.