Alan Jackson

One Liner: One of the greatest country artists ever

Wikipedia Genre: Neotraditional country, bluegrass, gospel
Home: Nashville (via Newnan, GA)

Saturday at 8:30pm

Thoughts:  This feels like a big bite to chew.  But I guess I wrote about George Strait before, so I can get through it on Alan too.  I have written before about how country music was not my first love, and how it took me a while to come around to it.  I was bitchin' and loved rock and roll, man.  So, when other kids in high school were loving Garth and Alan and Clint and Shania, I was looking down on them for their terrible and simple tastes.  But as high school wore on and I figured out a lot more about who I was and what this music was really about, I came around.  And so, my first recollection of really giving in to Alan Jackson was after buying his greatest hits CD - 1995's The Greatest Hits Collection - and adding that to the rotation in my CD changer in my car.  I don't know why I have this particular specific memory, but I recall being on South Lamar, right next to where that old movie theater became a Strait Music (and is now abandoned, I think), driving north towards my mom's new house, and listening to that disc.  It's still a damn solid collection of tunes.

His albums start with 1990's Here in the Real World.  If I am being honest, I figured he would have been around in the 80's as well, not just kicking off in 1990.  The biggest track off of that first disc is "Chasin' That Neon Rainbow."  80.5 million streams.

That video whips ass.  "Audition time!"  "Wanted" is a good one too - this feels like before those sorts of songs sounded super cheesy, although I know it is cheesy, at least it felt like the original cheesy tune and not some Music Row automaton today trying to emulate that prior schtick.

Next was 1991's Don't Rock the Jukebox.  That title track was freaking great too.  The abrupt change in tone between the chorus (which starts the song) and the piano-driven verse is perfection.  That is the top song on this album by a long ways.  95.6 million streams.

The spoken interview at the start of that video is fantastic.  His moustache is an extra character in that play.  Excellent video.  Everybody wants to hear that George Jones.  The Panhandlers just dropped his name too.  But also, I just think this is a great song - well written with the double-entendre of him feeling sad and not wanting someone to play rock and roll on the juke.  This album boasted four number one songs - the title track, "Dallas," "Someday," and "Love's Got a Hold on You."  "Midnight in Montgomery," which has always sounded like Garth Brooks to me, only made it up to #3 on the charts, but I think it is great.

So, Jackson is originally from Newnan, Georgia, which is about 40 miles southwest of Atlanta.  Born in 1958, so he is 66 now.  Like he says in his songs, he had four older sisters and then little Alan.  His parents went by "Daddy Gene" and "Mama Ruth," and also like in "Home," they really did live in a small home built around Alan's granddad's toolshed.  That is wild.  After graduating high school, he started singing with a band called Dixie Steel, while working construction and playing small clubs around Georgia.  When he was 27, he and his wife Denise moved to Nashville to give music a real shot.  His wife was a flight attendant, and apparently she met Glen Campbell on a flight and asked his advice on Alan's career.  Glen hooked Alan up with his manager and the rest is history.

By now, he is one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, with over 75 million albums sold worldwide.  35 number one songs (which is freaking nuts), 9 multi-platinum albums.  Two Grammys and a pile of other awards.  Country Music Hall of Fame.  Grand Ole Opry.  Georgia Music Hall of Fame.  Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.  Probably 38 other halls of fame as well.

His next album, and the biggest of all, was 1992's A Lot About Livin' (And A Little 'Bout Love), which features his biggest tune by a ton - "Chattahoochee."  303.3 million streams.

I loved that video a million years ago.  I absolutely remember those shots of him water skiing in his hat and ripped jeans.  Perfection.  The lyrics are perfection too - capturing the aimless confusion and hopefulness of that stage of a teenager's life.  Also has "She's Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues)," "(Who Says) You Can't Have It All," two other songs using parentheticals in the titles, and the very fun "Mercery Blues."  This one was a massive album, got him a few CMA Awards for song of the year and other things, went six times platinum, and reached #13 on the regular Billboard charts.  One crazy thing, in this day of over bloated albums from hell, is that this is just a tight little thirty-minute album.  I've listened to it several times this morning and it keeps being over so quickly!  Drake could never!

Finally, the last mega-album in his catalog was 1994's Who I Am, which went four times platinum and features four #1's - "Summertime Blues," "Livin' on Love," "Gone Country," and "I Don't Even Know Your Name."  "Gone Country" is the one of those that has stood up to the test of time, with 122.3 million streams today.

Again, the intro to that video sort of rules.  Excellent song, which expertly foretold the current climate where, yet again, everyone is going country.  2024 - Post Malone and Beyonce, two of the biggest pop stars around, putting out a country album, 30 years after Alan told us this was coming.  He knew the landscape of the world even back then.  After the blockbuster Greatest Hits album, his next two were less large - 1996's Everything I Love and 1998's High Mileage have some smaller hits and the dopey ass "Little Bitty," which boasts 170 million streams.

Cajun style, baby!  After those two, he took a detour by releasing an album called Under the Influence, which is entirely made up of classic covers.  Like the exceedingly great "It Must Be Love" or "Kiss an Angel Good Morning'."  That was the first album since the early ones that didn't hit #1 on the country charts.

Right as the millennium was rolling over to 2000, he and George Strait made an angry old man tune to decry the state of country music as it angled towards pop and away from their neotraditional sound.  "Murder on Music Row" was not on an album - it appears to be on Strait's 2000 greatest hits package called latest greatest straitest hits.  It's not a great song, but I'm sure having two of the all time greats scold you for putting money over artistry can't feel great.  Then, in 2001, Jackson fired out a 9/11 tribute song called "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" that is a little more soft rock schmaltz than country, but it ended up on his 2001 album Drive.  There is a tune on that disc that has a ton of streams though, the most of any song after his early hits days, that I couldn't recall at all when I saw it sitting there - "Drive (for Daddy Gene)" has 149.1 million streams.

When the chorus kicked in, that sounded familiar.  Definitely not a song I was familiar with though.  Cheesy as all hell, and yet I find myself getting a little misty-eyed anyway thinking about those times driving with my own dad and then my own kids.  Alan (or his Music Row writers more likely) knew what he was doing with this one.  Dammit, I'm giving the youngest some driving lessons this weekend.

Speaking of family, he married his high school sweetheart, Denise, the same one who got him his big break with Glen Campbell.  They've been together for 40+ years, and had three daughters together (who very well may be the stars of that video above).  Denise wrote a New York Times bestseller called It's All About Him: Finding the Love of My Life.  He really was close with George Jones too, singing "He Stopped Loving Her Today" at Jones' funeral.

2004's What I Do has no songs with more than 3 million streams.  2006's Precious Memories was apparently a gospel album he did for his mother, and it has some bigger streams counts for those traditionals.  2006's Like Red on a Rose was apparently panned by his fans because he let Allison Kraus produce and it became a softer, bluegrass-y album that his fans thought was wrong.  One song barely breaks 4 million, most are under 500k.  2008's Good Time gets him back in the saddle of the classic stuff - both the title track and "Country Boy" have over 100 million streams.  "Country Boy" doesn't ring a bell at all, this is definitely after I stopped with this sort of Nashville country.  Here is "Good Time," with 120 million streams.

That one sounds familiar.  Not a very good song, but if his critics had hated his last one and he wanted to get back to his roots, this one is definitely there.  Sounds like a drum machine in there for a bit too, which is unfortunate.  2010's Freight Train has another song with a lot of streams but that landed outside of my brain space.  The title track has 79.2 million streams.

He didn't even make a video for it!  That is disappointing.  At least I get to watch the mullet flow while jamming the song up above.  A little too repetitive for me to really get behind it.  The music underneath the lyrics sounds great, but I'm not catching the feeling from his sentiment.  2012's Thirty Miles West didn't get much traction.  Same with 2013's Precious Memories Vol II and 2013's The Bluegrass Album.  I actually enjoyed that last one, but I just dig bluegrass music.  "Blue Ridge Mountain Song" made me happy and sad at the same time.  2015's Angels and Alcohol didn't spawn anything big, and nor did 2021's Where Have You Gone.  I will say that his voice is just as golden as ever on that 2021 album - only a touch of that husky deepening that strikes so many of the old guard as they age.  Some of it very much sounds like George Strait to me.  Nothing new since then, and in fact Wikipedia says that he told the world that his 2022 tour would be his last.

Apparently in 2021, he told the Today Show that he had been diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.  CMT is a form of muscular dystrophy that can affect balance, but is a hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy of the peripheral nervous system characterized by progressive loss of muscle tissue and touch sensation across various parts of the body.  When he disclosed the diagnosis, he mentioned that he has become uncomfortable performing because he has trouble balancing and stumbling.  Which is sincerely awful.  I am truly excited to get to see him play, but I sure hope that he is able to find some comfort off of the stage soon.

All in!