On This Day in 2013, We Bid Farewell to “The Rolls-Royce of Country Music” and Legendary Voice Keith Richards Called “Pure American Music”

On April 6, 2013, George Jones exited the stage at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee and told wife Nancy, “I just did my last show. And I gave ‘em hell.” Twenty days later—on this day (April 26) in 2013—the most-imitated voice in country music went silent as Jones died of hypoxic respiratory failure at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He was 81 years old.

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George Jones Left an Indelible Mark on Country Music

Calling George Jones a country singer feels a bit reductive. He was a singular force in the genre for six decades, with more than 160 chart singles to his name. Thirteen of those hit No. 1, including the transcendent “He Stopped Lovin’ Her Today” (1980) and 1973’s “We’re Gonna Hold On” with his third wife, Tammy Wynette.

Notably, the Big Bopper-penned “White Lightnin’” launched Jones’ career in 1959. The two East Texas boys grew up less than 100 miles apart, with J.P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) hailing from the tiny coastal town of Sabine Pass. Jones was reared in a log cabin in Colmesneil, where he grew up listening to Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe on the Grand Ole Opry’s Saturday night radio broadcast.

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The “Grand Tour” singer’s father, George Washington Jones, would frequently return home drunk in the middle of the night and demand his son sing for his friends.

Those early experiences provided the blueprint for George Jones’ life. He couldn’t not sing, but he also couldn’t always keep his substance use at bay. His struggles with alcohol and c*caine nearly wrecked his career many times, earning him the nickname “No Show Jones” due to his pattern of missed performances.

They wrought similar havoc on his personal life, in particular leading to his divorce from Tammy Wynette. Career-wise, however, he always managed to bounce back, winning a Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance thanks to 1999’s poignant “Choices”.

[RELATED: How George Jones’ Band Helped Inspire This No. 1 Rolling Stones Hit From 1968]

“Pure American Music Without Ever Waving a Flag”

Tributes poured in after news broke of George Jones’ death, with one surprising (and heartfelt) homage coming from Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.

“George Jones has left us,” wrote Richards, now 82. “We have lost one of the most individual singers of all time. I cannot express the emptiness I feel.”

The notoriously hard-partying rocker had planned a surprise appearance at Jones’s farewell concert, Playin’ Possum! The Final No Show, set for November 2013.

Continuing his tribute, Richards added, “He was pure American music without ever waving a flag – you can hear a million imitations on the radio every day – but there was, and ever will be, only one George Jones.”

“I truly loved ‘the possum’,” concluded the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. “He was a crazy as me, and just as free… and, oh boy, could he hang.”

Featured image by Beth Gwinn/Getty Images