Alan Jackson gives fans a great show, song after song

Every time Alan Jackson seems to reach the summit, he takes his music and his fans even higher.

Take his current album, "What I Do," and his 2005 tour, which comes to the Star Pavilion at Hersheypark Stadium tomorrow night.

When he hit these parts around the same time last year -- an April show at the Giant Center -- Jackson was the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year; had his second greatest hits album out with two new hit singles, "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" with Jimmy Buffet and "Remember When"; and was touring with fellow superstar Martina McBride.

A little more than a year later, his latest album, "What I Do," has produced three hit singles, including the current "The Talkin' Song Repair Blues," and he will be preceded on stage by Sara Evans, who could be on her way to McBride's level.

Evans is not only gorgeous -- she recently made People magazine's list of the 50 most beautiful people -- but also is riding high on her own hit album, "Restless," her fourth since impressing renowned Nashville songwriter Harlan Howard in 1996 with her version of one of his songs made popular by Buck Owens, "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail."

Her best-known single from her current album, "Suds in the Bucket," topped the country Billboard charts last fall.

But at 34, Evans is still on the ascent. Jackson, 46, has reached the mountaintop, with 31 No. 1 hits and album sales topping $43 million. A renowned songwriter, Jackson has penned the majority of the songs on his albums. Some veteran country writers call him the best singer-songwriter since the legendary Hank Williams Sr.

Unlike the hard-living Williams or the bombastic Toby Keith, who is the only other contemporary male artist who rivals Jackson for both singing and songwriting, "AJ" is painfully shy and often has trouble looking first-time acquaintances in the eye.

"I'm not a big showman," Jackson told Newsweek magazine in a rare interview. "They use big lights and video to make it look excitin', but it's still just me standing there in the end."

Indeed, anyone going to Jackson's concert tomorrow for the first time shouldn't expect a lot of banter with the audience. He'll take a few minutes to acknowledge the crowd and where he is, but there will be no personal stories, side-splitting jokes, or prancing about stage.

If form holds, the 6-foot-4-inch lanky Georgian will stride on stage in his familiar worn jeans, cowboy boots and Stetson, then launch into his usual opener, "Gone Country," an early '90s hit in which he spoofs the pop side of country music. If he performs "Midnight in Montgomery," smoke is usually released to mimic fog on a darkened street, but that's as close to any stage theatrics as he'll come.

To Jackson's credit, that is usually more than enough as proven by the fact that his shows are still packed after touring for almost 16 years.

It is exactly that reliance on the music to carry the day that makes Jackson so popular with fans of traditional country music, those who still listen to the likes of Williams, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and George Jones.

Jackson writes and sings about the trials and tribulation of the common man -- of heartbreak, of devotion, of pickup trucks, of bars, of small diners and, as David Allan Coe would say, "of gettin' drunk."

Unlike some other country artists, including Keith, Evans, and Travis Tritt, Jackson seldom gets involved in politics in his songs and, with the exception of a few chiding Nashville music execs, rarely includes them in his lyrics.

Whereas Keith wrote in post 9-11 of the U.S. putting a boot up some derrieres, and Daryl Worley sang of this country understandably "looking for a fight," Jackson wrote the haunting and emotional "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning." The song, which brings concert audiences to their feet in tribute to the victims (and often to tears), talked about the inner horror the nation felt as opposed to anger and revenge.

That song is pretty much a lock for tomorrow's concert, but beyond that it's anybody's guess since Jackson's songbook is too full for a two-hour show.

Regardless of what he selects, they are all good.

JOHN TROUTMAN: 255-8104 or jtroutman@patriot-news.com