Cocaine and Rhinestones: A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette

Debut author Coe draws on his eponymous podcast for a digressive and bloated account of the rise and fall of one of country music’s most legendary couples. George Jones found early success in Nashville with such hits as 1958’s “White Lightnin’,” while Tammy Wynette got her start in Memphis honky-tonks before moving to Nashville in the 1960s and teaming up with producer Billy Sherill for songs like “Apartment #9” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.” When Wynette signed with Jones’s booking agency in 1967, the two began touring together and became romantically involved, giving Jones’s fans hope that the “King of Broken Hearts”—so-called for his 1965 album of the same name—might find a “fairy-tale ending.” But after the couple married in 1969, Jones’s addiction to drugs and alcohol and volatile psychological states caused their relationship to splinter. The years that followed their 1975 divorce saw both of their careers decline. Coe aims to put Wynette and Jones’s story in the context of larger shifts within country music, such as the development of a pop-inflected “Nashville Sound,” but tangents on moonshine, bullfighting, and other far-flung topics fail to enrich the narrative. Readers will be frustrated. (Sept.)