Here’s the Possum himself, George Jones, with one of his signature tunes, “The Corvette Song.”

First, some housekeeping. Technically, the title of this 1985 Billboard top three hit is not “The Corvette Song,” though everyone calls it that. The official name is “The One I Loved Back Then.” And really, the song is only sort of about a 1963 Corvette. It’s actually about the girl in the passenger seat.

Oh, she was hotter than a two dollar pistol
She was the fastest thing around
Long and lean every young man’s dream
She turned every head in town

Frank Sinatra called George Jones “the second-best singer in America.”

“If we all sounded like we wanted to, then we’d all sound like George Jones,” said Waylon Jennings. Born with a broken arm in Saratoga, Texas on September 12, 1931, Jones was the walking, talking embodiment of country music. And when he passed away on April 26 of this year, America lost an incredible, larger-than-life character—a genuine living legend. The performance below is from his late ’90s television show on the old Nashville Network.