Burn Your Playhouse Down

Burn Your Playhouse Down: The Unreleased Duets is the sixtieth studio album by American country music artist George Jones. The album was released on August 19, 2008, via Bandit Records and was co-produced by Brian Ahern, Billy Sherrill, and Keith Stegall. It was Jones's final to be released before his death in 2013.

The album is largely composed of archival material, with most tracks originating from earlier duet projects that Jones recorded in the 1980s and 1990s.^[1] Seven of the songs were leftovers from The Bradley Barn Sessions in 1994,^[2] with additional recordings from Friends in High Places in 1991, with three of the songs being intended for that album, but were not included.^[3]

The subtitle of the album emphasizes that the material consists of "unreleased duets," which were not issued at the time of their recording either due to stylistic mismatches or because they just did not make the final cut of previous albums.^[2] The collection also includes two tracks of particular historical and personal interest: "Lovin' You, Lovin' Me", a 1977 duet with Jones's then-wife Tammy Wynette, and "You and Me and Time", a new 2008 duet with the pair's daughter Georgette Jones.^[1]

The songs on Burn Your Playhouse Down features a wide range of duet partners, including Keith Richards, Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Shelby Lynne, Leon Russell, Ricky Skaggs, Jim Lauderdale, and Mark Chesnutt.^[1] Jones's collaboration with Richards on the title track retains a loose honky-tonk spirit and has been widely regarded as one of the album's standout performances.^[2] Similarly, his duet with Marty Stuart on "You're Still on My Mind" and with Chesnutt on "When the Grass Grows Over Me" offer moments more reminiscent of Jones's classic style.^[2]

Other pairings include Russell's distinctive piano and vocal textures on "The Window Up Above" and Gill's gently delivery on "Selfishness in Man".^[4] The duet with Parton, "Rockin' Years", and with Lynne, "I Always Get It Right With You", demonstrate the breadth of Jones's collaborators, though critics noted that the material itself did not always serve Jones's strengths.^[1]

"You and Me and Time", the opening track and the album's lone single, presents a semi-autobiographical reflection on the relationship between an estranged father and his daughter, serving as an emotional centerpiece and a symbolic "coming-out party" for Georgette Jones.^[2] The album closes with "Lovin' You, Lovin' Me", a Wynette duet that recalls the former couple's celebrated strong of hit collaborations in the 1970s.^[4]

Burn Your Playhouse Down received mix-to-negative reviews. Many critics expressed disappointment that the collection offered little beyond outtakes, with most of the material lacking the vitality of Jones's strongest work.^[5] While duet partners were often praised, specifically Richards, Parton, Gill, and Chesnutt, reviewers noted that the production, carried over from The Bradley Barn Sessions, tended to overshadow Jones's vocals.^[5]

One reviewer remarked that the album was "a redundant mixed bag of songs that weren't good enough to make two previous, related collections."^[3] Another argues that, apart from the Richards collaboration and the duet with Jones's daughter, the performances were forgettable and underscored why the recordings had remained unreleased.^[2]

Nonetheless, some critics found merit in select tracks, particularly "Tavern Choir" with Lauderdale and "When the Grass Grows Over Me" with Chesnutt, and noted that the historical value of the unreleased material would appeal to completists and fans of Jones's duet tradition.^[5]