On the night of April 6, 2013, George Jones finished a concert at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee, and told his wife Nancy, “I just did my last show. And I gave ’em hell.” He was 81 years old. Twenty days later, on April 26, he died in Nashville. The fans in the coliseum that Saturday night had come to see one stop on a farewell tour. Only the man on stage seemed to understand that it was the farewell itself.
A farewell tour built on failing lungs
Jones spent much of 2012 fighting for breath. He was hospitalized with an upper respiratory infection on March 29, 2012, and again for the same problem on May 21. Instead of retiring quietly, on August 14, 2012, he announced the Grand Tour, a farewell run named after his 1974 No. 1 hit. It was set to end on November 22, 2013, with an all-star night at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena called Playin’ Possum! The Final No Show. That Nashville date sold out by early March 2013.
Nancy did not want him to go. She later told The Tennessean that she begged him to come off the road and he would not. He had the band lower the keys of his songs so he could still reach them. When she told him to stop, he said he kept thinking about the old mothers who had saved up ticket money for him in the years when he never showed up.
That old reputation was the joke inside the finale’s name. Missed concerts had made him “No Show Jones,” a nickname he later turned into a song with Merle Haggard.
He just wanted to prove he loved them.
That was how Nancy summed up the final year, adding that the fans never complained because they knew he was weak and knew he was leaving.
The night in Knoxville
A writer for the local site Inside of Knoxville was in the audience with his wife and his 80-year-old father, and three days after Jones died he published one of the few firsthand accounts of the show. Two sons of the Statler Brothers opened. After an intermission, a video played for “The Gospel According to Jones,” a tribute song by Eric Lee Beddingfield. Then the band walked out, with Billy Contreras on fiddle.
Jones needed help to reach the stage. A band member told the crowd he had been through two back surgeries and was determined to play for Knoxville anyway. Jones still made jokes about his old habit of not showing up, but the pain was plain to see. According to the review, he stood, sat in a low chair, tried a higher one, and never seemed to find a position that did not hurt.
His voice was thin, and a female vocalist and a strong band helped carry it. Still, there were moments when the real Jones voice cut through. The set included “Why Baby Why,” his first major hit from 1955, along with “White Lightning,” “The Window Up Above,” “She Thinks I Still Care,” “The Grand Tour” and “Choices.” A video played behind him during “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes.” Around “White Lightning,” he talked about the drinking he had left behind for good.
The song he saved for last
The reviewer called it a painful hour and admitted he was not sure Jones would finish. Jones closed with “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” the 1980 song he once credited with saving a four-decade career. He rose from his chair to sing it. About two minutes in, he had to sit back down. Video from that night shows him nearly missing his cue to come back in while the crowd cheered and sang him through to the final chord.
It is a song about a man whose love ends only at his own funeral. The reviewer wrote that he and his wife both wept. Then the house lights came up.
Twenty days
Back on the bus, Jones told Nancy what no one in the arena knew. His next shows were set for the Fox Theatre in Atlanta and for Salem, Virginia, the weekend of April 19. On April 18, a routine checkup in Nashville found a slight fever and irregular blood pressure, and he was admitted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for observation. The weekend shows were postponed. He never came home. He died on the morning of April 26, 2013. The official cause was hypoxic respiratory failure.
For longtime fans, the date of the Knoxville show carried its own weight. April 6 was also the day Tammy Wynette, his former wife and duet partner, died in 1998. His final concert came 15 years to the day after hers.
The farewell that went on without him
Nancy later said George had known for months that he would not make the Nashville finale. When she asked why he was saying yes to every interview and request on the tour, he told her he was not going to be around, and asked her to turn the last night into a tribute he could watch from heaven.
She kept the date. On November 22, 2013, Playin’ Possum! The Final No Show went ahead at Bridgestone Arena as a four-hour tribute with dozens of performers, from George Strait singing “The Grand Tour” to Vince Gill on “Bartender’s Blues.” Former First Lady Laura Bush was among those who appeared. At the end of the night, Alan Jackson, who had also sung it at the funeral, closed with “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” and Nancy joined him on stage for the final choruses.
It was the same song George Jones had ended with in Knoxville, 230 days earlier.