Alan Jackson album
mixes fun, tragedy
Country singer takes down-home approach Alan Jackson's music covers a variety of emotions.

Ethan Miller / REUTERS

Billboard
Updated: 6:27 p.m. ET Sept. 10, 2004NASHVILLE - As the release of a new album approaches, most artists begin to wax philosophical about art, life and the messages they hope to convey with their music.
In discussing his new album, “What I Do” (Arista Nashville), released Sept. 7, Alan Jackson takes a more down-home approach.

“My wife said every song I write has either food or cars in it,” Jackson says with a laugh. “I said, ’I write about what I like.”’

In truth, Jackson’s musical contributions during his 15-year career cover a much broader range of topics. From the poignant post-Sept. 11, 2001, ballad “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” to the fun-loving “Chattahoochee” to the wistful nostalgia of “Remember When” to his current hit love song “Too Much of a Good Thing,” Jackson has continually served up songs that strike a universal chord with audiences.

His warm, heartfelt baritone and ability to write or find great songs have placed Jackson at the top of the format. He’s the Country Music Assn.’s reigning entertainer of the year.

Since debuting in 1989, Jackson has placed 64 titles on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. Of those, 38 have reached the top five and 22 have claimed No. 1, among them “Don’t Rock the Jukebox,” “Little Bitty,” “Where I Come From,” and “Drive (For Daddy Gene).” Of the 15 Jackson album titles to hit the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, nine have been certified multiplatinum.

“What I Do” is a musical feast that includes both lighter fare such as “If French Fries Were Fat Free” and “The Talkin’ Song Repair Blues” as well as such meaty tracks as “You Don’t Have to Paint Me a Picture” and “Monday Morning Church.” The latter is one of the most potent ballads in country music since George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

“It’s this guy’s story of surviving his wife’s or partner’s death and how he’s mad at God about it,” Jackson says of the song, which is the first one Nashville songwriters Brent Baxter and Erin Enderlin have had recorded. “It gives me chill bumps when I hear it.”

Remembering a lost loved one
The song was almost recorded by Lee Ann Womack, but Jackson says he’s glad he got it instead. “It’s about trying to survive after you’ve lost a loved one and just how every little thing you touch or see stirs up the memories and makes it hard,” Jackson says. It will be the next single.

“(The lyric says,) ’She left her Bible laying there and he put it in a drawer,”’ Jackson says. “I know when my daddy died, my mama still had his shaving stuff in the cabinets. She wouldn’t take it out. It’s just little things like that that mean a lot to you when you are connected to somebody every day.”

Though Tim Johnson wrote the title track about the challenges of making it in the music business, Jackson says, “I’ve lived all that. I’ve gotten doors slammed in my face, people telling me to go back to Georgia and work little bars with nobody there to listen to me.

“A lot of times when you get to the level I’m at now, (people think you’re) this big star and there’s something magical about you, but really you are just the same old guy that sang in those bars 20 years ago, doing some of the same songs. People forget what you’ve (gone) through to get here.”

The song, he says, “gave me a chance to thank all these people who’ve supported my music all this time. I thought it was a real pretty song, a real pretty melody.”

Though Jackson and longtime producer Keith Stegall found some great outside songs, Jackson also wrote five cuts on the album, among them “USA Today” “Rainy Day in June” and “Too Much of a Good Thing.”

The album features guest appearances by Patty Loveless, who adds harmony vocals on “Monday Morning Church” and the Oak Ridge Boys’ bass singer Richard Sterban on “Burnin’ the Honky Tonks Down.”

The album also includes contributions by Jackson’s nephew, Adam Wright, and Wright’s wife, Shannon. They sing background on the album and contributed two songs, “Strong Enough” and “If Love Was A River.” Known as the Wrights, the couple will have an album out next spring on Jackson’s own imprint, ACR (Alan’s Country Records) in a joint venture with RCA Records.

Asked whether he would ever retire, Jackson laughs and says, “I don’t know what I’d retire from. I don’t work that much now. I work as few dates as I can each year because I like to stay at home with my family. I guess I’ll just keep going. I told somebody the other day, ’No sense jumping off a fast-moving train. I’ll just wait until it stops.”’

© 2004 Billboard