Album release date – Nov. 1993
Label – MCA Nashville
10 tracks, 31 minutes.
In an attempt to break the radio silence Jones had been experiencing MCA employed Buddy Cannon (who had just signed and produced both Billy Ray Cyrus and Shania Twain’s debut hit albums) to produce George Jones’ latest in hopes of appealing to a younger audience. Buddy tapped song writing legend Byron Hill (Picking Up Strangers, Fool Hearted Memory, Nothing On But the Radio) to craft the title track “High-tech Redneck”.
High-tech Redneck tells the story of a country boy who gets satellite cable for his big screen television. It boasts that he gets 13 different channels of wrestling and picture in picture. It doesn’t stop there, this “bumpkin'” also has 20 subwoofers in his truck that he uses to blast Ronnie Milsap. He also has a cellphone, which was pretty rare in the early 90’s. Byron alludes that having this type of technology is something similar to being on Star Trek. The more I think about the potential for a song like this, the more I’m convinced this short sighted failure is now predictable from the oblivious Nashville bubble.
There had to be a meeting that went something like, “How do we get George Jones back on the radio?” Someone says, “Let’s get Byron to write a Beverly Hillbillies type song.” Everyone agrees and out the door they go.
The song is poorly written. It’s short and the intention isn’t clear. The song literally lists the technology he has. Fish out of water tales are meant to be funny, tongue in cheek or cast the main character into a curious state, but this song does none of those things. The rest of the world agreed and it only reached #24 on the charts before falling off quickly. The goal to get George back on the radio with High Tech Redneck failed, but the rest of the album is quite good.
George Jones’ sweet spot has always been heart break songs as his soft, crooning vocals lend to that genre. Most of the other 9 songs are just this. In fact, one of the best songs on the album is the second song, “I’ve Still Got Some Hurtin’ Left To Do” which is self-explanatory. It’s sincere, to the point and extremely relatable.
The album is chock full of country studio legends including Rob Hajacos who is widely considered one of the best fiddle players to ever pick up the instrument. He’s on lots of tracks. In fact, last year Rob was inducted into the National Fiddlers Hall of Fame. He was last seen touring with Garth Brooks and Taylor Swift.
Vince Gill sings back up on some of these songs while Sammy Kershaw has a feature on the sleeper, “Never Bit a Bullet Like This”. This typical country metaphor is done in a Kershaw-esque up beat tempo that misses the mark as a Friday night honkey tonk tune. Kershaw actually re-released this duet on his 1994 album “Feelin’ Good Train” as filler.
I do like this album and there is a lot to enjoy for the fans of The Possum. In fact one of my favorite songs is the very last track which is a cover of “Hello Darlin'” by Conway Twitty. Conway died the prior year and this album was dedicated to him.
I’ve listened to this album several times and then another 5 times today so I could refresh my memory and write this review. Here’s something else I noticed. On the album cover George is standing in front of a 1993 Mercury Grand Marquise LS. The license plate reads IDOSHOW in response to the nickname “No Show Jones” he earned for not showing up to anything and everything for nearly two decades.
Maybe someone finally bought ole George a cell phone.