COUNTRY SINGER:

When I was growing up in the '90s, whenever I heard people claim to like all kinds of music, they tended to qualify it with "except for country and rap." Other than sounding dumb and more than a little prejudicial, this was a superficial gloss of two genres that have plenty in common, as Ice-T once pointed out. They've both become solidly mainstream, but casual listeners often neglect the music's intricate social, aesthetic, and political histories. As a music nerd, I must admit that I was a country music dilettante, a mostly Hank-and-Cash fan, until only recently.

Tyler Mahan Coe, son of the outlaw country singer David Allen Coe and half of the duo behind the fun podcast Your Favorite Band Sucks, is working to set the record straight. His celebrated podcast Cocaine and Rhinestones engagingly distinguishes between country music's fact and fiction. C & R's first season offered deep dives into the life and work of some of country music's crucial but perhaps less widely known figures: Spade Cooley, The Louvin Brothers, Ralph Mooney, and others. As Coe explains, "I've been hearing these stories all my life. As far as I can tell, this is the truth about this one."

As with many genres, country often suffers from the distorted projections and misapprehensions coming from both within and outside the community about what's "real" country and what isn't. Coe passionately defends his subjects against accusations of inauthenticity or reactionary posturing. There are also vivid, informed, and occasionally harrowing tales about what went on behind closed doors. It's a crash course that subtly encourages the listener to explore further. And it works--I might not be theologically on board with the sentiment of the Louvin's Satan is Real record, yet it still gives me the existential shivers every time.

Season two brings the listener into the world of George Jones, aka Old Possum, aka No-Show Jones. Jones's turbulent life and wrenching songs--give "The Grand Tour" or "A Good Year for the Roses" or "The Window Up Above" a spin to find out why he's so revered--are already pretty much canonical. But that only means that he can be an entry point into so much else. [...]

What makes George Jones so central to the history you're telling? Why is he a useful starting point?

The main scope of the podcast is 20th-century music. George Jones released huge hits across half that window, then carried right on into the 21st century to become the only individual who charted Top 40 country singles in seven different decades. Objectively speaking, Jones is the individual who most represented the idea of "country singer" to the most fans of the genre for the longest period of time. But even without such success and popularity, he would still be the best country singer of all time. This is not simply my opinion or preference. It's just as much a matter of athleticism and anatomy as anything else.

George Jones is to country singers as Michael Phelps is to Olympic swimmers. And all of that is speaking purely to the musical career of George Jones, a catalog which would be crucial and integral to a comprehensive understanding of the genre no matter the circumstances of his personal life. But it just so happens, once you place the story around the music--his background, his love life, the No-Show Jones mythology, the battle with addiction, etc.--you've got everything it takes to hook an audience into sitting there long enough to have their minds blown by 70 years of country music history.

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