George Jones's nearly 60-year recording and performing career has had a profound influence on modern country music and influenced a younger generation of singers, including Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, Tim McGraw, andTrace Adkins. As Merle Haggard said of Jones in Rolling Stone magazine, “His voice was like a Stradivarius violin: one of the greatest instruments ever made.”

Jones's saga is a larger-than-life tale ofrags to riches and back to rags again. He w...