GEORGE JONES, whose aching voice has come to exemplify country music in its purest state, died today in a Nashville hospital after being hospitalized last week with a fever and irregular blood pressure, his publicist said today. He was 81. The Texas native racked up no less than 143 Top 40 country hits, including 14 chart-toppers, starting with 1959's "White Lightning," and including such stone classics as "She Thinks I Still Care" and "He Stopped Loving Her Today." “His singing, which was universally respected and just as widely imitated, found vulnerability and doubt behind the cheerful drive of honky-tonk,” as Jon Pareles eloquently puts it in an obit for the N.Y. Times. “With a baritone voice that was as elastic as a steel-guitar string, he brought suspense to every syllable, merging bluesy slides with the tight, quivering ornaments of Appalachian singing.” Sinatra called him "the second greatest singer in America," and Keith Richards hailed him as "a national treasure." Jones had a chronically troubled personal life, beset by addictions to drugs and alcohol, arrests and missed gigs, nearly losing his life in 1999 in drinking-related auto accident. He was also married four times, most famously in a turbulent union with fellow country star Tammy Wynette. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992, and was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2008 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award last year. He’s survived by Nancy Jones, his wife of 30 years, his sister Helen Scroggins and children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. (4/26a)