George Jones was aware of his legacy at least as far back as 2005. That's when he conducted an interview with Taste of Country sister station WGNA in Albany, N.Y. and talked about how he'd like to be remembered. The Possum considered the good and bad of how he'd lived and summed it up for his audience. 

"There's a lot of things in my past that naturally I'm sorry for and I know I hurt a lot of people coming up in the business," Jones told WGNA's Kevin Richards (audio below). "The drinking and the boozing and all the things I did ... I would like to naturally be remembered for my songs and for my performance. Musically I would like to be remembered by the fans that way."

Jones' funeral was a celebration of his life and, fittingly, his music. Stars including Vince Gill, Alan Jackson, Wynonna Judd and Brad Paisley took the stage to remember the singer, who's considered amongst the best of all time. It seems like it was a remembrance he would have appreciated.

"I am basically, inside, a good person," Jones continued. "My wife, she'll brag on me for that. But I am a good person. I wasn't a good person, I was a difficult person when I was drinking and on drugs. Anybody is a different person when they do that. All I can say is I wish I hadn't done it, but you know we can't change what's been done. But we can do something about it."

The legendary singer added, "If you make a mistake in life, you correct it. We all make mistakes and we're gonna make it throughout our entire life as long as we're alive. We can't stumble around and worry about what we've done. We've got to improve and do things different."

George Jones died on April 26 at the age of 81.

Listen to George Jones' 2005 Interview with WGNA

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