Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus

In addition to selling 40 million records and producing chart-topping hits like “She’s All I Got” and “Take This Job and Shove It,” country music outlaw Johnny Paycheck became notorious for living the part. He was known for his music, grand theft auto, drug binges and stints in jail. At the height of Paycheck’s fame, he shot a man over a turtle soup recipe, which led to a high-profile trial, a prison sentence and one of his greatest hits, “Old Violin.”

One of the pioneers of rock’n’roll, Jerry Lee Lewis also happened to be a country music singer who liked to call himself “The Killer.” He made a name for himself not just as a magnetic piano-playing singer, but also as an impulsive, gun-wielding wild man, who stoked epic rivalries with the likes of Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. The Killer also notoriously married his 13-year-old second cousin, setting off an epic worldwide scandal.

He was a poor boy from a bootleggers’ town in the Texas backwoods. She was a cotton-picking Mississippi girl dreaming of stardom in Nashville. Together, George Jones and Tammy Wynette became the first power couple in country music. They were perfect in the public eye, but their tumultuous relationship was punctuated by George’s alcohol-fueled escapades and his paranoia over Tammy’s romantic past. She tried to keep the marriage from turning toxic, singing “Stand By Your Man,” her greatest hit, onstage with her husband every night.