I might be as shocked as you are that I subjected myself to a miniseries detailing the careers of country music royalty, George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Truly, I despise country music, but I love Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain, so I decided to give George & Tammy a fair shake before my Showtime subscription ran out.
We meet the two right before they team up and eventually marry. Before all that though, Jones was on a decline as his drinking became a hinderance to his performances. Tammy was just starting out, “her turn” to try and make something happen while her then husband, Don Chapel wrote the songs and played in the band. Jones gave her a shot opening for him and it was clear that they had a spark. From there, the rest is kind of history. She eventually left Don for Jones and they started a kind of dream romance, one that Jones feared celebrity would take away from them. I suppose it eventually did, but he certainly played a large part in their demise, too.
But before the bad came all the good. They released a huge amount of songs together that shot them into infamy. Their collaborations too helped Tammy to forge her own success. At the end of the day she had more number one hits on the charts than Jones did, despite lapping her in number of singles. Eventually though, drinking became a more constant presence in Jones’ life again, putting both Tammy and their children’s lives in danger. She finally had enough and divorced him after only six years of marriage. Even though they weren’t together and had different romantic partners over the years, it’s clear that they still very much were in love with each other.
Unfortunately, they weren’t better apart. To Jones’ credit, he eventually reached and kept sobriety, but Tammy’s life kept deteriorating. Back when her and Jones’ daughter Georgette was born, Tammy was given an emergency hysterectomy that was pretty well botched. Since that time she suffered an immense amount of pain, undergoing 21 surgeries over the course of the rest of her life. In between though, she was prescribed some dangerous pain meds that were ultimately her demise. Yes, the doctors and pharmacists were to blame, but her last husband, songwriter George Richey was perhaps the biggest enabler. He used her dependence on these drugs and his administrations of it as blackmail to not rat him out as a verbal and physical abuser.
Ultimately, Tammy’s life ended too soon, but her legacy lives on in her music, and now hopefully by this miniseries. It was definitely an interesting story about the chaotic lives of these two country legends. I don’t know how actual fans of these two would react to the series, but critics and awards bodies seemed to enjoy it, too. Check it out country fans!