Red Bay local features in Wynette cartoon

North Alabama natives are no strangers to the rich musical background of the area. But for Franklin County residents, one of the most memorable aspects of that background lies in the world of banjos and twangy voices. Country music’s own Tammy Wynette claimed the city of Red Bay as her hometown and performed many benefit concerts in the area.

Wynette’s famed marriage to George Jones produced iconic music and infamous tales that have now been made into a cartoon.

Mike Judge, creator of King of the Hill and several other popular shows and movies, has created a new animated cartoon series titled “Tales from the Tour Bus.” This series chronicles the adventurous lives of popular country music artists, focusing on wild and raucous stories told in short 30-minute episodes on Cinemax.

“It will be a year ago in November when they contacted me and came here to the museum,” Red Bay local Scotty Kennedy said.

Kennedy is unofficial curator for the Red Bay Museum, which features a large George Jones and Tammy Wynette exhibit on its second floor – making the museum an obvious choice to include in the animated segment.

When the crew came, Kennedy said he ended up spending three and a half hours with them, telling stories and showing them the museum.

“I thought they were just coming to film the museum, but then we got to discussing stories,” he said.

At first, Kennedy was just relaying a story about Jones and Wynette. Then, they started asking him to tell more stories and eventually started feeding him stories to repeat so they could film him.

“I have years of theater experience, so it wasn’t hard to get into it. I tried to make it interesting,” Kennedy said.

For the episodes, Judge made Kennedy into a cartoon with his mouth as the only moving part of his body while he tells the stories.

One story Kennedy told features a benefit concert held in Red Bay. Wynette was with her husband at the time, Don Chapel, when out of nowhere Jones showed up under the pretext of friendship and performed at the concert. A couple of months later, Wynette left Chapel and started dating Jones.

A picture from that concert can be found in the Red Bay Museum, along with several other novelty items, like seats from Wynette’s private airplane and replicas of some of her awards.

The Jones and Wynette episode aired in two parts. The first part was released Oct. 6, and the second part was released Oct. 13.