George Jones – I Am What I Am

If, for some reason, it became necessary to explain to a Martian (or a radio programmer) what country music is and why it matters, this album should about do the job. That the opening “He Stopped Loving Her Today” was first released in 1980 seems almost inconceivable, for it is a masterful, timeless song that sounds as if it might have been found in Hank’s back pocket.

But when a newly (and briefly) sober George Jones hit the studio to record I Am What I Am in early 1980, producer Billy Sherrill had in hand an extraordinary sheaf of songs, including that career single, all of which played to Jones’ strengths as a singer and weaknesses as a man. Now expanded by four previously unreleased tracks, I Am What I Am is the rarest of Nashville creations, an album that demands to be taken seriously as a comprehensive, complex work of art, as opposed to a collection of would-be singles and filler.

Jones famously reveals little in interviews, but it’s all laid bare here, albeit in songs other people wrote. That he would consent to sing “I’ve Aged Twenty Years In Five” or “If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will)” is almost as astonishing as the frightening honesty he brought to the microphone.

Even the comparatively lighter tracks (“His Lovin’ Her Is Gettin’ In My Way”, and the concluding “Bone Dry”) are ferocious. The four newly unearthed tracks — “I’m A Fool For Loving Her”, “Am I Losing Your Memory Or Mine?” (which should have been a hit), “The Ghost Of Another Man”, and “It’s All In My Mind” — are of a piece. Alas, the liner notes explain neither their source nor how they came to be associated with I Am What I Am, but they fit quite comfortably into this masterpiece.