The last time George Jones landed a Top 20 country hit, his name wasn’t even first on the label. The record was Patty Loveless’s 1997 single “You Don’t Seem to Miss Me,” with Jones billed as her special guest, singing harmony behind her. It peaked at No. 14, and a year later it beat duets by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and Reba McEntire with Brooks & Dunn for a CMA award.
A Song That Started on a Desert Walk
The song belonged to Jim Lauderdale long before it belonged to anyone else. He told Taste of Country that the idea came up while he was out in the California desert, talking with his friend, the singer-songwriter Victoria Williams. The two talked about writing a song around the phrase, but they never got around to it, so Lauderdale finished it on his own. He has said it came together quickly while he walked out there in the desert. He had written it with himself in mind.
Then he was invited to a meeting with Patty Loveless and her husband, producer Emory Gordy Jr., who were gathering songs for her album Long Stretch of Lonesome. Lauderdale recalled showing up feeling underprepared. The first songs he pitched, they told him, they already had. So he played one he simply liked, “You Don’t Seem to Miss Me.” The next day, they called to say they wanted it.
It is a quiet, aching song about a person racing home to someone who no longer seems to notice they were ever gone.
“Yeah, But Can We Get Him to Do It?”
The idea of adding George Jones came from the producer’s chair. Patty Loveless told CMT that when they were working on the song, Emory Gordy said it would be a very cool thing for George to sing on. Her first thought was whether George Jones would actually say yes.
“I was thinking, ‘Yeah, but can we get him to do it?'” — Patty Loveless, to CMT
In the fall of 1998, she gave CMA Close Up a little more of the picture. When they went back to re-cut the song, the steel guitar part reminded her of old George Jones records.
“His voice was the finishing touch the song needed.” — Patty Loveless, CMA Close Up, October 1998
Jones remembered it simply: Patty and her producer called him, and he was honored. She called it the first time George Jones had ever come in to sing on one of her records.
For her, it reached all the way back. Her first Top 10 hit, in 1988, had been her cover of his 1967 song “If My Heart Had Windows.” In a 2018 interview with the Country Music Cruise, she recalled doing a call-in show on WSM when that record came out, and a woman phoning in to say the girl singer was pretty good, “but she ain’t George Jones.” About a decade later, George Jones was on her record.
The Night It Debuted at the Opry House
The single was released on September 20, 1997. Four days later, on September 24, the song made its television debut on the 31st Annual CMA Awards, broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry House. George Jones walked out and joined Patty Loveless on stage, and the industry crowd answered with a rousing response.
Radio Shrugged. The Awards Did Not.
On the charts, the song stalled at No. 14. Writing about it years later, the critics at Country Universe said country radio balked at what it saw as a too-traditional song. Around Grammy time that winter, Patty Loveless told CMT that getting to sing with George Jones was almost an award in itself. The record was nominated for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals at the 40th Grammy Awards in February 1998, where it lost to Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood’s “In Another’s Eyes.”
The rematch came on September 23, 1998, back at the Grand Ole Opry House. In the CMA’s Vocal Event of the Year category, “You Don’t Seem to Miss Me” was up against, among others, “In Another’s Eyes,” Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s “Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me,” and Brooks & Dunn with Reba McEntire on “If You See Him/If You See Her.” Patty Loveless and George Jones won it.
No later George Jones single, solo or shared, made it into the country Top 20. This one was the last.
What They Said About Each Other
Jim Lauderdale, who had once planned to keep the song for himself, put it plainly to Taste of Country.
“I never dreamed that George Jones would be singing one of my songs, and I still get emotional just thinking about it.” — Jim Lauderdale
The song kept finding new admirers. Patty Loveless recalled meeting Bruce Springsteen backstage in 2000, and she said he talked about “You Don’t Seem to Miss Me.” In her words, he loved George Jones and he loved that song.
The last word belongs to the man who sang harmony. Asked about the record in the fall of 1998, George Jones said it was great working with a traditional country voice like hers, and then he added this:
“Believe me, she is no phony, just pure Country, and I love her for keeping it Country.” — George Jones, CMA Close Up, October 1998