You've Still Got a Place in My Heart

Background

You've Still Got A Place In My Heart was released the same year that Jones finally got sober at 52 years old. His wife Nancy told The Texas Monthly in 1994 that the first show Jones played sober in Birmingham, Alabama "was terrible. He was like a scared puppy. 'I can’t do it,' he said. 'I can’t go on.' He was begging and breaking down and dying for a drink. And when he got out there on that stage, and after the first song, he looked out to me in the audience, and he seemed like such a poor, lost, wounded soul that I burst into tears." Jones, who had been written off for dead countless times in the previous decade, stated to the Associated Press in June of that year, "All my life it seems like I’ve been running from something. If I knew what it was, maybe I could run in the right direction. But I always seem to end up going the other way." He persevered, however, and the singer managed the longest stretch of sobriety of his adult life, largely thanks to the support of his wife, who had also become his manager.

Recording

You've Still Got A Place In My Heart includes several remakes from earlier in Jones's career: "I'm Ragged But I'm Right", had appeared on the singer's very first LP Grand Ole Opry's New Star in 1957, while "Even The Bad Times Are Good" and "Come Sundown" (the latter a Kris Kristofferson song) had been recorded by Jones on the Musicor label. The title track, which peaked at number 3 - Jones's ninth top ten hit in four years - had been composed by Leon Payne, whom the singer had paid tribute to with an album of songs in 1971. Many of the numbers are up-tempo and optimistic, especially the heartfelt "The Second Time Around", which sounds like a tribute to Nancy Jones. He also gives a Johnny Cash-spirited narration on the novelty "Courtin' In The Rain.