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George Jones - I Am What I Am (Remastered Expanded Edition) (1980/2000)

Posted By: delpotro
George Jones - I Am What I Am (Remastered Expanded Edition) (1980/2000)

George Jones - I Am What I Am (Remastered Expanded Edition) (1980/2000)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) | 00:41:45 | 247 Mb
Country, Singer-Songwriter | Label: Epic Records, Legacy Recordings

I Am What I Am is an album by American country music artist George Jones released in 1980 on Epic Records label. It was rereleased on July 4, 2000 with bonus tracks on the Legacy Recordings label.

By 1980, Jones had not had a number one single in six years and, dogged by no shows and substance abuse, many critics began to write him off. However, the singer stunned the music industry in April when "He Stopped Loving Her Today" was released and shot to number one on the country charts, remaining there for 18 weeks. The song was written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman and tells the story of a friend who has never given up on his love; he keeps old letters and photos from back in the day and hangs on to hope that she would "come back again". The song reaches its peak in the chorus, revealing that he indeed stopped loving her when he died and the woman does return—for his funeral. In a lesser singer's hands, the song might have sounded corny or even comical but Jones' interpretation, buoyed by his brilliant delivery of the line "…first time I'd seen him smile in years", gives it a mournful, gripping realism. When it began being played on the radio in the spring of 1980, just about everyone who heard it was floored. According to producer Billy Sherrill and Jones himself, the singer hated the song when he first heard it. In Bob Allen's biography of the singer, Sherrill states, "He thought it was too long, too sad, too depressing and that nobody would ever play it…He hated the melody and wouldn't learn it." Sherrill also claims that Jones frustrated him by continually singing the song to the melody of the Kris Kristofferson hit "Help Me Make It Through the Night". In the 1989 Same Ole Me retrospective, Sherrill recalls a heated exchange during one recording session: "I said 'That's not the melody!' and he said 'Yeah, but it's a better melody.' I said 'It might be—Kristofferson would think so too, it's his melody!'" In the same documentary, Sherrill claims that Jones was in such bad physical shape during this period that "the recitation was recorded 18 months after the first verse was" and added that the last words Jones said about "He Stopped Loving Her Today" was "Nobody'll buy that morbid son of a bitch". A big part of Jones' success over the years was that he could always smell a hit but this time his instincts were woefully off. Although he had disliked "He Stopped Loving Her Today" when it was first offered to him, Jones ultimately gave the song credit for reviving his flagging career, stating that "a four-decade career had been salvaged by a three-minute song." It was more like a phenomenon than a song; Jones earned the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 1980 and the Academy of Country Music awarded the song Single of the Year and Song of the Year in 1980. It also became the Country Music Association's Song of the Year in both 1980 and 1981.

Since 1975, the singer had scored only one top ten LP (1975's Alone Again) so Epic and Sherrill were quick to capitalize on the success of the single in 1980 by getting Jones in the studio to record some brand new songs. As he had done in the early days of Jones's marriage to Tammy Wynette (and during the dark days following their divorce), the veteran producer cherry picked songs that sounded as if they were pages torn from the singer's life. While Jones's recent albums with Sherrill had been accused of being erratic at times, I Am What I Am contained just about everything a fan could want from a George Jones record, including hard drinking songs like the self-explanatory "I've Aged Twenty Years In Five" and "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)", which rose to number 8 on the singles chart in 1981. In his essay for the Sony reissue of the album, Glen Gass of the Indiana University School of Music calls "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me" "a manifesto of existential barroom despair" that would have been a "tossed off novelty" in another singer's hands (During performances of the song, Jones would jokingly conclude it by replacing "her memory will" with "Tammy's memory will"). Another drinking song, the musically upbeat "Bone Dry", explores in hellish detail the withdrawal associated with alcohol addiction. "Cheatin' songs" are also represented with the coy "I'm The One She Missed Him With Today" and the honky-tonk ballad "Brother To The Blues". Jones forte had always been the ballad, of course, and his rendition of the Tom T. Hall composition "I'm Not Ready Yet", which like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" includes a recitation, peaked at number 2 on the charts. The singer even managed to get one of his own songs, "A Hard Act To Follow", on the album, which he wrote with Earl Montgomery, and finally recorded his own version of the country classic "Good Hearted Woman".

I Am What I Am peaked at number 7 on the Billboard country album charts, his first top 10 album in five years, and even appeared on the Billboard Top 200 at 132. The phoenix-like reemergence of Jones only made the performances of the songs more captivating for listeners, as Glen Gass observed in 2000: "I Am What I Am is music from the abyss. The 1980 album was released at a time when George Jones seemed as likely to die than resurrect his career, after a personal disintegration that shocked even his most hardcore friends and fans." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic raves "the production is commercial without being slick, the songs are balanced between aching ballads and restrained honky tonk numbers, and Jones gives a nuanced, moving performance…like the best country music, these are lived-in songs that are simple, direct, and emotionally powerful, even with the smooth production." Sputnikmusic calls the album "As raw as the cheapest whiskey, as pretty as the girl you can’t forget…George took his tenor, along with the mainstay Country music themes of drinking and heartbreak, and made the entire genre his own." Amazon.com calls it "an unassailable classic of modern country music."

I Am What I Am announced that George Jones had officially returned to form artistically and, in the process, it became his biggest hit album ever. It's easy to see why – the production is commercial without being slick, the songs are balanced between aching ballads and restrained honky tonk numbers, and Jones gives a nuanced, moving performance. "He Stopped Loving Her Today," "I'm Not Ready Yet," and "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)" were the hits, but the remaining seven album tracks are exceptionally strong, without a weak track in the bunch. It's mature country, both in the laid-back approach and subject matter, but that doesn't mean it's dull – like the best country music, these are lived-in songs that are simple, direct, and emotionally powerful, even with the smooth production. I Am What I Am is the sound of George Jones at his peak and it's the highlight of his later years. Four bonus tracks – "Am I Losing Your Memory or Mine?," "The Ghost of Another Man," "It's All in My Mind," and "I'm a Fool for Loving Her" – give the 20th anniversary version of the album an added richness.
Tracklist:
1 He Stopped Loving Her Today
2 I've Aged Twenty Years In Five
3 Brother To The Blues
4 If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)
5 His Lovin' Her Is Gettin' In My Way
6 I'm Not Ready Yet
7 I'm The One She Missed Him With Today
8 Good Hearted Women
9 A Hard Act To Follow
10 Bone Dry
Bonus Tracks
11 I'm A Fool For Loving Her
12 Am I Losing Your Memory Or Mine?
13 The Ghost Of Another Man
14 It's All In My Mind

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 11. October 2011, 13:36

George Jones / I Am What I Am [Legacy Edition]

Used drive : HL-DT-STDVD+-RW GSA-H73N Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 102
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "ALBUM ARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=EAC V1.0 beta 3, Secure Mode, Test & Copy, AccurateRip, FLAC -8" %source% -o %dest%


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Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
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1 | 0:00.00 | 3:19.47 | 0 | 14971
2 | 3:19.47 | 3:19.28 | 14972 | 29924
3 | 6:39.00 | 2:53.55 | 29925 | 42954
4 | 9:32.55 | 3:13.22 | 42955 | 57451
5 | 12:46.02 | 2:32.15 | 57452 | 68866
6 | 15:18.17 | 3:00.28 | 68867 | 82394
7 | 18:18.45 | 3:02.62 | 82395 | 96106
8 | 21:21.32 | 3:00.50 | 96107 | 109656
9 | 24:22.07 | 2:07.38 | 109657 | 119219
10 | 26:29.45 | 2:18.55 | 119220 | 129624
11 | 28:48.25 | 3:26.67 | 129625 | 145141
12 | 32:15.17 | 3:35.73 | 145142 | 161339
13 | 35:51.15 | 3:09.17 | 161340 | 175531
14 | 39:00.32 | 2:44.60 | 175532 | 187891


Track 1

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Copy CRC FA4CC113
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [BE1839EF], AccurateRip returned [FDE1BED3] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 2

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Track quality 100.0 %
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Copy CRC 3F401CF5
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [05A4F24E], AccurateRip returned [155CDA11] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 3

Filename K:\Audio Projects\EAC Rips\03 - Brother To The Blues.wav

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Peak level 94.3 %
Extraction speed 1.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC C8D92F64
Copy CRC C8D92F64
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [89CC0CA5], AccurateRip returned [E80407E1] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 4

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Track quality 100.0 %
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Copy CRC E06978F5
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [04D22DC4], AccurateRip returned [FF94967D] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 5

Filename K:\Audio Projects\EAC Rips\05 - His Lovin' Her Is Gettin' In My Way.wav

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Peak level 92.1 %
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Track quality 100.0 %
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Copy CRC 6B8D630B
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [42E703B4], AccurateRip returned [911B38EE] (AR v2)
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Track 6

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Copy CRC 099C5CAC
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [89BCE84B], AccurateRip returned [58DF767D] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 7

Filename K:\Audio Projects\EAC Rips\07 - I'm The One She Missed Him With Today.wav

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Extraction speed 2.1 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 547BE5B3
Copy CRC 547BE5B3
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [212EE101], AccurateRip returned [44EA8129] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 8

Filename K:\Audio Projects\EAC Rips\08 - Good Hearted Woman.wav

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Peak level 99.8 %
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Track quality 100.0 %
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Copy CRC 901D2A89
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [DF95AA0A], AccurateRip returned [B6879018] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 9

Filename K:\Audio Projects\EAC Rips\09 - A Hard Act To Follow.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:03.42

Peak level 84.0 %
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Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC C1235E6F
Copy CRC C1235E6F
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [F3CA86A0], AccurateRip returned [348C8E9E] (AR v2)
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Track 10

Filename K:\Audio Projects\EAC Rips\10 - Bone Dry.wav

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Track quality 100.0 %
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Copy CRC 3BDD846B
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [B781CFDF], AccurateRip returned [24BE1F51] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 11

Filename K:\Audio Projects\EAC Rips\11 - I'm A Fool For Loving Her.wav

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Peak level 79.3 %
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Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC D22ED579
Copy CRC D22ED579
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [847EAE4F], AccurateRip returned [C2B2566A] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 12

Filename K:\Audio Projects\EAC Rips\12 - Am I Losing Your Memory Or Mine.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.73

Peak level 79.3 %
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Copy CRC 874B890F
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [A07CA033], AccurateRip returned [83F749A7] (AR v2)
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Track 13

Filename K:\Audio Projects\EAC Rips\13 - The Ghost Of Another Man.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.73

Peak level 89.0 %
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Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 22281BFA
Copy CRC 22281BFA
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [49D0633E], AccurateRip returned [11729A3E] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 14

Filename K:\Audio Projects\EAC Rips\14 - It's All In My Mind.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.69

Peak level 89.0 %
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Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC A8F418D2
Copy CRC A8F418D2
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [FF503D5D], AccurateRip returned [2509CE5F] (AR v2)
Copy OK


No tracks could be verified as accurate
You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database

No errors occurred

End of status report

–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.3

[CTDB TOCID: cVU.C7cHxms6RhwqILe.imsAL38-] found, Submit result: cVU.C7cHxms6RhwqILe.imsAL38- has been confirmed
[7f62956a] (3/3) Accurately ripped


==== Log checksum 87C1A8E7BCE6DF30A41D343CB5BBB2344AD4FD5B20F88129E865865B6BEBA646 ====

Thanks to the Original ripper djrichiep !