Ladies' Choice (George Jones album)

Background

Ladies' Choice was Jones's fifth album of duets in five years, beginning with My Very Special Guests (1979), Double Trouble with Johnny Paycheck (1980), Together Again with Tammy Wynette (1980), and A Taste of Yesterday's Wine with Merle Haggard (1982). The singer had also scored a top ten duet with Ray Charles on "We Didn't See A Thing" in 1983, a single that also featured guitar solos from Chet Atkins. Jones's fondness for the duet stretched back to the beginning of his career when, in 1957, he recorded "Yearning", with Jeanette Hicks. He had also recorded hits with Melba Montgomery and, most famously, Wynette. In the liner notes to the 2005 Sony reissue of the album, the singer states, "The fans just react to a man and woman singing a powerful ballad together. When you perform a duet with a woman, she should sing the lead and the man should sing harmony. Of course, there are exceptions...You know, I don't really fall in love with all them girl singers - I fall in love with their singing!"

Recording

For the most part, Ladies' Choice pairs the singer up with up and coming female vocalists, although the album is noteworthy for featuring Jones's only duet with fellow country icon Loretta Lynn. Ironically, the most famous song on the album was not a duet; the opening track, "She's My Rock", written by Gene Dobbins and sung by George as a tribute to his wife Nancy, rose to number 2 on the country singles chart. Nancy was the crucial influence in helping Jones turn his life around and stop drinking, which by this time the singer wanted to do. As he later recalled to The Texas Monthly in 1994, "Well it was either quit or die. And I surely didn’t want to die, so I made up my mind to quit."

Many of the songs would be included on the expanded reissue of My Very Special Guests in 2000.

Reception

The LP was not a commercial success, peaking at number 25 on the Billboard country albums chart. The one solo track on the album, "She's My Rock," was a major success, peaking at No. 2 for three weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in December 1984, and two other singles - a cover of Ray Charles's "Hallelujah, I Love Her So" with Brenda Lee and "Size Seven Round (Made of Gold)" with Lacy J. Dalton coasted into the Top-20 of the country charts. Duet albums, particularly those of this kind, rarely receive rave reviews. This album being no exception there happened to be plenty of bellyaching from music critics of the time period and some of the groans carried over onto the on-line arena. Chris Woodstra of AllMusic contends that "rarely does this album strike anything above average" and believes "more than likely this was a marketing decision to pair the old-school singer with the up-and-coming country ladies of the '80s." Jones biographer Bob Allen deems the collection "faintly interesting".