On this day (July 30) in 1983, George Jones topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart with “I Always Get Lucky with You.” Penned by Merle Haggard, the song stayed atop the chart for one week. The song was Jones’ ninth and final No. 1.
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Jones released his debut single in 1954. Four years later, he scored his first No. 1 with “White Lightning.” However, his songs didn’t consistently reach the upper regions of the country chart until 1963, when “You Comb Her Hair” kicked off a long string of top 40 hits. He maintained this level of success until the early 1980s. He began the decade with the timeless “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” which started a string of 1 top 10 singles. Three of those songs–” He Stopped Loving Her Today,” “Still Doin’ Time,” and “I Always Get Lucky with You”–topped the chart.
While traditional-sounding country music was in fashion during the 1990s, Jones’ chart success started to wane. More and more of his singles missed the top 40. Then, as the new millennium dawned, his hits all but dried up.
Merle Haggard Helps George Jones Top the Charts One More Time
Merle Haggard co-wrote “I Always Get Lucky with You” with Freddy Powers, Gary Church, and Tex Whitson. He recorded it for his 1981 album, Big City, but didn’t release it as a single. Then, George Jones covered it two years later.
Interestingly, it wasn’t the first time Haggard helped Jones top the chart. Their duet, “Yesterday’s Wine,” went to No. 1 in October 1982. Also, Jones knocked Haggard out of the top spot with “I Always Get Lucky with You.” The single ended Haggard and Willie Nelson’s one-week run at No. 1 with “Pancho and Lefty.”
Haggard and Jones were more than collaborators who worked within the same sphere of country music. They were friends. The “Mama Tried” singer wrote about Jones in an article for Rolling Stone after he died. “I was always trying to help George out of some damn thing. I felt like his big brother, even though I was younger,” he recalled. “I know he depended on me and he respected me to tell him the truth when a lot of times other people would lie to him,” he added.
“I’d get mad at him over the years because of his self-damage, but everything I said to him was out of love,” Haggard explained. “Imagine you’re George Jones, and every night you’re expected to sing as good as you did on a song like ‘She Thinks I Still Care.’ he was a shy country boy from East Texas walking around with that on his shoulders,” he added. “He was the Babe Ruth of country music, and people expected a home run every time.”
Featured Image by David Redfern/Redferns
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