Cocaine and Rhinestones

A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette

Tyler Mahan Coe, Wayne White

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781668015209
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Biographies

From the creator of the acclaimed country music history podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones, comes the epic American saga of country music’s legendary royal couple—George Jones and Tammy Wynette.

By the early 1960s nearly everybody paying attention to country music agreed that George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After taking honky-tonk rockers like “White Lightning” all the way up the country charts, he revealed himself to be an unmatched virtuoso on “She Thinks I Still Care,” thus cementing his status as a living legend. That’s where the trouble started. Only at this new level of fame did Jones realize he suffered from extreme stage fright. His method of dealing with that involved great quantities of alcohol, which his audience soon discovered as Jones more often than not showed up to concerts falling-down drunk or failed to show up at all. But the fans always forgave him because he just kept singing so damn good. Then he got married to Tammy Wynette right around the time she became one of the most famous women alive with the release of “Stand by Your Man.”

Tammy Wynette grew up believing George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After deciding to become a country singer herself, she went to Nashville, got a record deal, then met and married her hero. With the pop crossover success of “Stand by Your Man” (and the international political drama surrounding the song’s lyrics) came a gigantic audience, who were sold a fairy tale image of a couple soon being called The King and Queen of Country Music. Many fans still believe that fairy tale today. The behind-the-scenes truth is very different from the images shown on album covers.

Illustrated throughout by singular artist Wayne White, Cocaine & Rhinestones is an unprecedented look at the lives of two indelible country icons, reframing their careers within country music as well as modern history itself.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Chapter One: The Starday Machine
• Chapter Two: Outlawed Tradition
• Chapter Three: “White Lightnin”
• Chapter Four: Nashville Sound
• Chapter Five: Run, Bull, Run
• Chapter Six: Red Flags
• Chapter Seven: Blood and Sand
• Chapter Eight: All to Pieces
• Chapter Nine: Fit to Kill
• Chapter Ten: Ol’ Pappy
• Chapter Eleven: Little Wars
• Chapter Twelve: Daddy’s Girl
• Chapter Thirteen: Strongly Worded Letters
• Chapter Fourteen: Stand By Your Man
• Chapter Fifteen: Thrones
• Chapter Sixteen: Country Royalty
• Chapter Seventeen: Prized Beauty
• Chapter Eighteen: Unhappy Homes
• Chapter Nineteen: Selling Soap
• Chapter Twenty: Divorce/Death
• Chapter Twenty-One: Dangerous Threads
• Chapter Twenty-Two: Pulling Strings
• Chapter Twenty-Three: Cocaine Blues
• Chapter Twenty-Four: The Dark
• Chapter Twenty-Five: Living Legends
• Chapter Twenty-Six: Living Lies
• Chapter Twenty-Seven: Stoned Singers
• Chapter Twenty-Eight: Back to Life
• Chapter Twenty-Nine: For the Roses
• Chapter Thirty: Baby Boy
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• A Note on Sources
• Index
• Copyright