Judging by the cover image, with his decorated shirt collar and impressive side-burns, I made the dangerous assumption that Jones was going to be a country singer.
Which he is. Musically it doesn’t feel that different from, say Merle Haggard (last seen in 1967) or Buck Owens (1965). Ten years isn’t that big a time jump, but compare “rock” and “R&B” from 1965 to the current batch and those genres have changed enormously.
That said, Jones does the mournful country ballad pretty well. Most of the tracks on here are slow, waltz tempo tunes about heartbreak (and sometimes happy love) - a reflection of his troubled marriage to Tammy Wynette at the time (I wonder if he was the man she was standing by?). This, and Jones’ drinking problem, crop up in the final track Our Private Life, a jaunty number that attacks intrusive press attention and gossip.
As an aside, Jones famously drove miles to the liquor store on a ride-on lawn-mower after Wynette had hidden the keys to his car. For all of the conservative sentiment behind some country music, Jones had as much trouble with drugs and alcohol as the more rebellious likes of Jim Morrison and Ozzy Osbourne.
One thing I noticed about the music construction, the songs are all very traditional and have a similar melodic style as a folk tunes, hymns, and carols. After one run through the chorus, you know exactly where it’s going to go (even anticipating the key changes when they happen). This makes them instantly familiar, perfect for singing along in a bar where the barmaid is called Cindy-Lou and your drinking buddies Mack and Darryl are fighting at the pool table.
And that’s fine. If you’ve followed along you’ll know that I prefer the weird and disturbing songs the most, but there’s a place for comfort and familiarity as well. My grandparents used to have a collection of records by Don Williams, and this music took me back there (Williams' music is a bit more cozy in subject compared to Jones, though).
There’s some nice pedal steel guitar on here (no musician credits that I could find, so maybe Jones himself), that decorates the spaces between the lyrics, so sliding and ethereal that it sounds like a theramin. The lyrics are simple yet clever – not the arch and knowing work of 10CC, but simpler metaphor, such as in one of the few up-tempo numbers The Weatherman:
“'Cause I can see the clouds of doubt are hangin' low overhead
And the hurricanes of jealously are just around the bend
Well, I can feel the rains of sadness fallin' on this heart of mine
Only we can bring fair weather back and have love one more time”
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