“IF YOU’D HAVE TOLD ME I’D EVER BEEN THIS AGE, I WOULDN’T HAVE BELIEVED YOU AT ALL.” On September 13, 2011, George Jones celebrated his 80th birthday at the Grand Ole Opry, never knowing it would be his final night there. Alan Jackson and Lee Ann Womack stepped onto the stage and sang “Golden Ring,” the No. 1 duet Jones had recorded with Tammy Wynette 35 years earlier—just 14 months after their divorce. Jones sat quietly, listening to two close friends sing a song that once carried the pain of his own broken marriage. A ring. A chapel. A broken home. A pawn shop. The words must have sounded different after all those years. No one in that room knew they were witnessing goodbye. George’s health soon declined, and he passed away on April 26, 2013. That night, however, the Opry still belonged to him.
admin Introduction: There are evenings in country music that become more meaningful with each passing year. George Jones’s 80th birthday celebration at the Grand Ole Opry on September 13, 2011, was…