Alan Jackson

With the announcement of his 33rd number one single of his career, "Good Time," and his recent achievement of crossing the 50 million album sales milestone, Alan Jackson's phenomenal career continues at full steam. On his latest album - named after its successful single - Jackson wrote all seventeen songs and worked again with his longtime Nashville producer Keith Stegall. Says Jackson in a recent interview, "The songs that ended up on the record all have different qualities that make up the record. It's a mixture of styles and subjects so somebody can hopefully find something on there to like."

In other recent Jackson news, this fall he will be going on tour with Trace Adkins. The Good Time tour will be visiting seventeen venues through the Midwest, Northeast, Canada and the West Coast. The tour will kick-off on October 2 at the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville, North Carolina and finish on November 23 in Ontario, California.

Though Jackson has gained a lot of recognition for his music in the more than fifteen years of his musical career, there was a time when he was just another unknown artist. Born on October 17, 1958, he married his high school sweetheart Denise, who he met at a Dairy Queen, and together they have three daughters. Before his career took off, Jackson would play in country bands in Georgia while working as a mechanic, used car salesman and forklift operator in order to pay the bills while he was writing songs.

Alan and Denise decided to move to Nashville in 1985 and Denise took a job at an airport as a flight attendant. It was there that she met Glen Campbell and proceeded to tell him about her husband and give him a tape of his work. Campbell gave Denise his business card, suggesting for Alan to call him, and in no time Alan was a staff songwriter at Campbell's music publishing company.

AJackson became the first artist to be signed to Arista Records' country division. His first single "Blue Blooded Woman" made it to Number 45 on the country charts in 1989, but in 1991 he started his successful line of chart topping songs as "I'd Love You All Over Again," "Don't Rock the Jukebox" and "Someday" all hit number one. He continued his chart topping success for years afterward again with songs such as "Love's Got a Hold on You" as well as "She's Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues)" in 1992, "Chattahoochee" in 1993 and "Remember" in 2004. Jackson also has done very well at the CMA Awards, walking away with such titles as Single of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year since 1993 and has tied Johnny Cash with most CMA wins in a year. Probably one of his most significant accomplishments though, was his song "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)," a song paying tribute to the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. In 2002 "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" won Jackson his first Grammy for Best Country Song and received the CMA Awards for Song of the Year and Single of the Year.

Jackson's songs have also helped deliver hits for other artists, such as Randy Travis, Clay Walker and Faith Hill. But whether he or another artist performs his work, it looks like any time is a "Good Time" for a Jackson song.

— Lauren Vislocky


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