Country Great George Jones Dies at 81

Country music great and former Lakeland resident George Jones died Friday at the age of 81.

Jones, known for hit songs such as "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "Golden Ring," was hospitalized in Nashville on April 18 with a fever and irregular blood pressure, according to his publicists.

Jones bought a vacation mansion called Old Plantation in Lakeland in the late 1960s and lived at the mansion full-time after marrying country singer (and third wife) Tammy Wynette. He continued to live in Lakeland until the two divorced in 1975. In an interview with The Ledger in February, Jones said he moved to Lakeland because it's a beautiful part of the country with great weather year-round.

Jones was married four times: Dorothy Bonvillion at the age of 17, having one daughter; Shirley Corley from 1954 to 1968, with two sons; Wynette from 1969 to 1975, with one daughter; and Nancy Sepulveda since 1983.

Jones was in the middle of a farewell tour called The Grand Tour, which made a stop at The Lakeland Center in February.

"It will be great," Jones said about playing in Lakeland. "Nancy (Jones' current wife) and I have a lot of good friends in the Lakeland area."

Mike LaPan, executive director of The Lakeland Center, said Jones sold out his show in February. LaPan had the chance to work with Jones on several occasions throughout the years, including the years LaPan worked at the USF Sun Dome.

His first encounter came in 1983 during Jones' "No Show Jones" days, when he was known for missing tour dates. LaPan was told to deliver Jones his fee for playing the show, which was mostly cash in those days.

LaPan walked into the dressing room and saw Jones sitting in a red satin smoking jacket, smoking a pipe.

He gave Jones' manager the money, and then Jones started stuffing the cash in his boot.

"I asked him, ‘Aren't you going to count it?'?" LaPan said to Jones.

"Then he takes a gun out and puts it on the table and says, ‘Do I have to?' and I said something like I would count it again, or something to that effect, and he laughed."

Jones was born Sept. 12, 1931, in Saratoga, Texas. He first received a guitar at the age of 9 and learned how to play it with the help of a Sunday school teacher. As a teenager, he performed wherever he could and eventually got his foot in the music door by performing on radio shows.

He released his first single in 1954 and "Why Baby Why" became his first hit a year later.

Nicknamed "The Possum" for his facial features, Jones became one of country music's most respected artists. Jones won Grammy Awards in 1981 for "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and for "Choices" in 1999.

He would go on to be elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992, was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2008 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2012 Grammy Awards.

"It is always great to be given an award, but to be honored by your peers makes it even more special," Jones said about being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Lakelander Bill Loftin, 85, was a friend and fan of Jones. Loftin purchased "Old Plantation" from Jones and owned the property for a number of years.

"I'm one of those people who think he was the greatest country music artist of the last half of the last century," Loftin said Friday.

"He sang for the people, and there's no question that they loved him. I'm just glad I got a couple of pictures with him."

Over the years, Jones had become outspoken about how country music has changed.

"The new music is not what I consider ‘country' music," he said.

"It is not bad music; it just isn't ‘country.' I would classify most of it as rock or pop."

Jones' battles with alcohol were also well-documented throughout his career. In Wynette's autobiography, "Stand By Your Man," she wrote that one night she awoke at 1 a.m. to find Jones was nowhere to be found at Old Plantation.

Wynette drove to the nearest bar 10 miles away and found Jones' riding lawn mower in the parking lot.

"He'd driven that mower right down a main highway," Wynette wrote.

"He looked up and saw me and said, ‘Well, fellas, here she is now. My little wife. I told you she'd come after me.'?"

In February, Jones was candid about his drinking.

"I regret letting so many of my fans down," he said.

Thanks to his wife Nancy, he was able to beat his addictions and stay clean.

While on his farewell tour, he remained thankful to all his fans who stood by him through the good times and the bad.

"The fans are why I am still on the road," Jones said two months ago.

"It is amazing to look out over an audience and see young and old fans singing along to every song. The crowd reaction is how I know if we entertained them."

[ Content from The Washington Post was used in this story. Matt Reinstetle can be reached at matt.reinstetle@theledger.com or 863-802-7533. Follow Matt on Twitter @LedgerMatt. ]