Born September 12th, 1931
Key Tracks "He Stopped Loving Her Today," "She Thnks I Still Care," "(We're Not) The Jet Set"
Influenced Garth Brooks, Elvis Costello, Alan Jackson

George Jones doesn't sound like he was
Influenced by any other singer: He sounds like a steel guitar. It's the way he blends notes, the way he comes up to them and comes off them, the way he crescendos and decrescendos. The dynamic of it is very tight and really controlled — it's like carving with the voice.

He has had a huge effect on all of country music — you can hear a direct line from him to Buck Owens to Randy Travis to George Strait. The Beatles listened to Buck Owens and his Buckaroos, and I think through them, George Jones' sound informed McCartney's style — McCartney had that George Jones swoop, as I call it.

The first time I heard George was on a copy of his greatest hits. I was already familiar with Hank Williams and Porter Wagoner, but not George and his West Texas thing. I was amazed at what he was doing with his voice. Since then, I've covered a couple of my favorites — "Why Baby Why" and "She Thinks I Still Care" — and I wrote a song called "Bartender's Blues," where I tried to sound as much like George as I could. And then he recorded it himself! It was one of those things where it all comes around.