Grand Ole Opry's New Star

Grand Ole Opry's New Star
Studio album by George Jones
Released	November 1956 [1]
Recorded	January 19, 1954 – August 1956
Studio	Gold Star (Houston, Texas)
Genre	Country
Length	34:14
Label	Starday SLP-101
Producer	Pappy Daily (Original) Eric D. Foss (Reissue)
George Jones chronology
Grand Ole Opry's New Star (1956) Hillbilly Hit Parade (1956)
Singles from The Grand Ole Opry's New Star
"Play It Cool, Man" Released: May 29, 1954 "Let Him Know" Released: July 16, 1954, September 25, 1954 "Hold Everything" Released: April 14, 1955 "Why Baby Why" Released: August 27, 1955 "What Am I Worth" Released: January 14, 1956 "I'm Ragged But I'm Right" Released: April 7, 1956 "You Gotta Be My Baby" Released: June 30, 1956 "Boat of Life" Released: August 11, 1956

Grand Ole Opry's New Star is the debut studio album released by George Jones in November 1956 ^[1] with Starday Records. Produced by Jones' manager Pappy Daily, the album was recorded during early sessions in 1954, throughout 1955, and other sessions in 1956. It is also the first album to be released on the Starday label, a label only four years old.

Despite its mediocre sound (due in large part to the inadequate sound of Starday recordings), the album has become a huge collector's item. Online sales of original copies have ranged up from $200 to $500. On October 15, 2013, the album was reissued by Reserve Records, with the first 250 copies cut on blue vinyl and included a rare 45 of Jones' "Thumper Jones" releases.

Background

Starday Records was an independent record label in Houston that was co-founded by Jones's producer and mentor H. W. "Pappy" Daily and Jack Starnes. Jones's first recording, the self-penned novelty "No Money in This Deal", had appeared in February 1954 and in 1955 he scored his first hit with "Why Baby Why", which would be the lead track on Grand Ole Opry's New Star. The title reflected Jones's 1956 appearance on the Grand Ole Opry , which solidified his emerging status in the country music world. ^[2] Extant copies of Grand Ole Opry's New Star are rare, and collector's prices are $400 and up. ^[3]

Recording and composition

Jones wrote or co-wrote all fourteen songs on the album, ^[4] which included three of his early top-10 country hits: "Why Baby Why", "What Am I Worth", and "You Gotta Be My Baby". ^[5] The singer had performed "You Gotta Be My Baby" during his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry in 1956. The first three songs written for the album, "Play It Cool", "Hold Everything", and "Boat of Life", were recorded between January and August 1954 at Starnes's Studio in Beaumont, Texas; the remainder of the songs were recorded in Houston at Gold Star Studio between March 1955 and August 1956.

Why Baby, Why

Jones's first chart hit, "Why Baby Why", has gone on to become a country standard, having been covered by Red Sovine and Webb Pierce (a number one duet in 1956), Hank Locklin (1956), Charley Pride (another number one in 1983), Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson (1983), Palomino Road (1992) and Patty Loveless (2008). In the liner notes to the retrospective Cup Of Loneliness: The Classic Mercury Years, country music historian Colin Escott observes that part of the song's appeal "lay in the way a Cajun dance number was trying to break free of a honky tonk song." Jones recorded the backing vocal himself, with help from innovative techniques from engineer Bill Quinn, after a planned appearance by more established singer Sonny Burns did not materialize due to the latter's drinking. According to the book George Jones: The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Legend, Jones's frequent songwriting partner Darrell Edwards was inspired to write the words after hearing an argument between a couple at a gas station.

Jones and Edwards also collaborated on "Seasons Of My Heart", which would go on to be a hit for Johnny Cash and was also recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis and Willie Nelson. Former Starday president Don Pierce later explained to Jones biographer Bob Allen that "Pappy realized George's strength as a balladeer long before I did. He felt that 'Seasons Of My Heart' was a big song. I knew that, in those days, it took much longer to sell a ballad, because it had to make it on the radio first...I also knew that an upbeat song like 'Why, Baby Why' would be easier to sell directly to the jukebox distributors for the beer-drinkin' trade." ^[6]

Ragged But Right & Yearning

"I'm Ragged But I'm Right" is a defiant statement of blue collar pride that actually dates back to a 1929 blues record by the Blue Harmony Boys. It was later cut by stringband veteran Riley Puckett in 1934 but, as Colin Escott speculated in 1994, "George probably picked it up from the Gulf Coast legend Moon Mullican, who played the same spots." The song would remain a favorite of Jones's, who would rerecord it several times (the last being for his 1983 album You've Still Got A Place In My Heart). Grand Ole Opry's New Star also features the ballad "Yearning" with Jeanette Hicks, the first of countless duets Jones would record over his long career which would cement his place as one of country music's greatest harmony singers.

Sound quality

In later years, Jones would have little good to say about the music production at Starday, recalling to NPR in 1996 that "it was a terrible sound. We recorded in a small living room of a house on a highway near Beaumont. You could hear the trucks. We had to stop a lot of times because it wasn't soundproof, it was just egg crates nailed on the wall and the big old semi trucks would go by and make a lot of noise and we'd have to start over again." ^[7] In 2013, Grand Ole Opry's New Star was reissued for the first time. The first 250 copies of this album were pressed on blue vinyl and came with a bonus reissue of Jones's only rockabilly record, an ultra-rare 45 rpm he cut under the name "Thumper Jones" in the wake of Elvis Presley's explosion in popularity in 1956. In his autobiography the singer joked, "During the years, when I've encountered those records, I've used them for Frisbees." However, as Nick Tosches notes in his 1994 Texas Monthly article "The Devil in George Jones", "Though Jones would never acknowledge it, the rockabilly impulse of the early fifties had affected his sound as much as the lingering voices of Acuff and Williams. 'Play It Cool, Man, Play It Cool,' recorded by Jones in 1954, several months before Elvis's debut, had bordered on pure rockabilly..." In the 1989 Jones documentary Same Ole Me, Johnny Cash insisted, "George Jones woulda been a really hot rockabilly artist if he'd approached it from that angle. Well, he was, really, but never got the credit for it." "What Am I Worth" was covered by Sammy Kershaw on 1991's Don't Go Near the Water .

Track listing

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[8]

All songs by George Jones unless otherwise noted. As listed on the cover and record label: ^{[4] [9]}

Side One

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Why Baby Why"	Darrell Edwards, George Jones	2:16
2.	"Seasons of My Heart"	Jones, Edwards	2:51
3.	"It's OK"	Jones	2:18
4.	"Let Him Know"	Jones	2:35
5.	"Play It Cool"	Jones	2:33
6.	"Hold Everything"	Jones	1:51
7.	"Boat of Life"	Jones	2:00

Side Two

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"You Gotta Be My Baby"	George Jones	2:33
2.	"What I'm Worth"	Jones, Darrell Edwards	2:34
3.	"Your Heart"	Jones, Edwards	2:40
4.	"Ragged But Right"	Jones	2:13
5.	"Yearning (duet w/ Jennette Hicks)"	Eddings, Jones	2:55
6.	"Still Hurtin'"	Jones	2:01
7.	"Taggin' Along"	Jones, Burl Stephens	2:57

References

1. "November Album Releases" (PDF). American Radio History. Cashbox. November 3, 1956. p. 20. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
2. Irwin Stambler; Grelun Landon (2000). Country Music: The Encyclopedia. Macmillan Books. p. 223. ISBN   0-312-26487-9.
3. Ivy Press, Gary Dowell, Isaiah Evans, Kim Jones, James L. Halperin (eds.) (2006). Heritage Music and Entertainment Dallas Signature Auction Catalog. Heritage Capital Corporation. p. 27. ISBN   1-59967-081-X.{{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
4. Auction result for this album with high definition images of front and back here, only shows track listing for side one.
5. "George Jones: Charts & Awards: Billboard Singles". Allmusic . Retrieved 2008-08-27.
6. Allen, Bob (1994). "Houston And Nashville: Up The Lost Highway". George Jones: The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Legend. A Birch Lane Press Book. Carol Publishing Group. p.  89. ISBN   978-1-55972-253-7.
7. Gross, Terry. "A Conversation With Country Superstar George Jones". npr.org. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
8. Allmusic review
9. Various online sites, such as this and this Archived 2008-10-07 at the Wayback Machine , list the same contents but in a different order from the album cover track listing.