When deciding what to "blog" about in regard to the bio of Alan Jackson, it's really not that simple once you get pass his early childhood life. Especially when he's one of my Top Three biggest icon in the music world. Having 15 studios album, 3 greatest hit albums, 2 Christmas albums, 2 Gospel Albums, and a few compilation albums, Jackson continues to impress the world since 1989. With that being written, he has over 50+ singles in the Billboard list of Top 30 country songs, with 50 in the Top 10, and at least 35 being #1. He has won 2 Grammy, 16 CMA, and 17 ACM. Became a member of the Grand Ole Opry on June 7, 1991, and in August of 2014, the Country Music Hall of Fame open an exhibit celebrating his 25th anniversary in the music industry.
Jackson was born on October 17, 1958, as Alan Eugene Jackson in Newnan, Georgia. His father, is Joseph Eugene Jackson (remember this) and mother is Ruth. You know one of Alan Jackson single, "Home"? The chours, "And they made their house from a tool shed / Grandaddy rolled out on two logs / And they built walls all around it / And the made that house a home.", is no joke. With Jackson, his parents, and 4 older sister, they literally lived in a house built off of his grandaddy old toolshed. Unlike people of my generation (with a few exception), Alan first job was at a shoe store. He was only 12 year old at the time. Jackson did graduate and attended college, it was during this time when Jackson was interested in the music world. Makes it interesting to want to think how life would be, if his friends never talked him into becoming a major music fan (you can be my guest, I rather not think the "what-if"). Alan started his band right after high school, and wrote his first song in 1983. He married Denise and have three daughters. Jackson and Denise moved to Nashville in 1985, where Denise worked as a flight attendant. In the meantime, Alan worked his way into the music life, and almost gave up when his wife came across Glen Campbell on one of her flight in 1986. So began Alan music career.
In 1989, he signed with Arista Nashville, which was newly formed off the branch of Arista Records, and was there first one ever. While 1989 is fresh on our mind, This is the year that has the famous, "Class of '89". Which included artist such as, Garth Brooks, Travis Tritt, Clint Black, and Mary Chapin-Carpenter (which you can be sure will be in my future post). Alan's first single was "Blue Blooded Women", but didn't really do anything for him. Which gave Jackson (yes, I know I keep switching back and forth between first and last name) a slow start. However, 1990 came along, and he released his second single, "Here In the Real World", and boom goes his career (the good boom, not the bad one). It reached #3, followed by, "Wanted" and "Chasin' That Neon Rainbow" also joined in on the Top 5 spot (The Billboard Hot Country Songs by the way). Which all these singles can be found on Jackson debut album, Here In The Real World. What else can be found on this album? That's right! His 1st #1 hit, "I'd Love You All Over Again", starting on the week of March 9, 1991, and stayed for 2 weeks.
His next album, Don't Rock the Jukebox, continued his success. Providing 4 #1 hits, "Someday", "Dallas" (the first song I've learned to play by him), "Love's Got a Hold On You", and let's not forget his title track as well, "Don't Rock the Jukebox". On the same album, Hank William last moment on earth is mentioned in his # 3 hit, "Midnight In Montgomery". Still a spooky song to this day if you really think about it. Jackson have also co-wrote with Randy Travis some of the songs found on Travis' album, High Lonesome, released in 1992. In exchange, Travis co-wrote Jackson's #1 hit, "She Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues)" (talk about a favor-in-return). "Chattahoochee", his additional #1 hit, won Jackson the 1994 CMA award for Singles and Song of the year. Who I Am was the next album released, however, it was the first released under Jackson new management company, Gary Overton. The album also gave Jackson another 4 #1 hits, "Summertime Blues", "Livin' On Love", "Gone Country", and his comical, "I Don't Even Know Your Name". Jackson is credited as a co-writer for Clay Walker's, "If I Could Make a Living" (which I swear, growing up in my early years, I thought it was Jackson who performed the song. Which is how I came to know Clay Walker).
Like so many other artist before him, Alan Jackson released his first greatest hit album in 1995, which contain two new singles, "I'll Try" and "Tall, Tall Trees", both reaching # 1. In 1996, Everything I Love was released and also provided Jackson a #1 with, "There Goes", however, the album also provided him with his first single to not reach the Top 10 since 1989 ( "A House With No Curtain"). CMA got a boot-in-the-hind back in 1999 when they asked George Jones to cut his performance down to 90 seconds. What happen? Jones boycotts the show altogether (very well done). To make matter worse for the show, Alan Jackson cut into the middle of his own song and performed Jones', "Choices", then walked offstage (like a drop-the-mic-and-walk-off kind of walk off). Just come to show, don't disrespect those whom made the show famous in the first place.
Then came the year 2000 (or Y2K). The year when Country music seem to have died. Everyone seem to be wanting to turn into the Country pop scene, which completely destroys the Country music true traditional sound. To criticize it, Alan Jackson and George Strait recorded "Murder On Music Row", which became the highest-charting nonseasonal album cut to appear on Hot Country Singles & Tracks in the Broadcast Data Systems era. Beating Garth Brooks', "Belleau Wood", which did it previously. That's how seriously bad country music started losing it taste.
However, Alan Jackson continues to make success in the new millennium. As a promised to his mother, Jackson released his first gospel album, Precious Memories, in 2006. THen things got a little bit more crazier for Alan. In the same year, Jackson released Like Red On a Rose, but was criticized for doing so. The reason? Many felt Jackson "was out of character". Rather it's true or not, his single, the title track, still found success through it all. A couple of years later, Jackson released Good Time, which made a statement that he was not running from his country traditionalist sound. "Sissy's Song" is one of Alan Jackson heartfelt song. It was dedicated to Leslie "Sissy" Fitzgerald, whom cleaned his house for a long, long time until the mid-2007, when she was killed in a motorcycle accident. Another heartfelt song by Jackson is his 2002 single, "Drive". When his late dad, Joseph Eugene Jackson, also known as Gene, passed on January 31, 2000 (what's interesting about this is my dad also goes by his middle name, which happen to be part of my first name. Here we have both Alan and his dad middle name the same, yet his dad was also known by his middle name as well).
As you can probably predict, there's so much that can be written about Alan Jackson, yet there's just not enough space to do so. A real good way to go deep into Jackson life, is to read his wife's book, It's All About Him: Finding the Love of My Life. Alan Jackson is currently touring with his recent new, 25th Anniversary Keepin' It Country Music tour. Which started this year. One more final, fascinating fact before I leave you with, "Chattahoochee". ASCAP been around since 1914, and provided Jackson the ASCAP's prestigious Heritage Award in 2014. Alan received the award for being the most performed country music songwriter-artist of ASCAPS's first 100 years. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that protects its members' musical copyrights by monitoring public performances of their music, whether via a broadcast or live performance, and compensating them accordingly.
RESOURCE
- http://www.opry.com/artist/alan-jackson
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Jackson
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-one_country_singles_of_1991_(U.S.)
- http://www.alanjackson.com/about.html
- http://countrymusic.about.com/od/maleartistsal/a/AlanJacksonBiography.htm
- http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/alanjackson/home.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Composers,_Authors_and_Publishers
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