Line #41 Music/AlanJackson


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_1alanjackson_3940.jpg]]
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3	Alan Eugene Jackson (born October 17, 1958) is an American CountryMusic artist known for his traditional, no-frills songwriting, down-home charm and humility... and shelf full of awards.
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5	Jackson started out unassumingly enough in 1989 on Creator/AristaRecords, which at the time had virtually no experience in the country music business. He was even working with Keith Stegall, a former solo singer with no production experience. Although his debut single "Blue Blooded Woman" flopped, he first cracked the Top 40 in 1990 with "Here in the Real World" and enjoyed nearly 20 years of hits. Coinciding with his departure from Arista, he provided duet vocals on Music/ZacBrownBand's "As She's Walking Away". With his fortunes fading at radio in TheNewTens, Jackson has moved to his own label, Alan's Country Records, with distribution by EMI.
6
7	His accolades include twenty-five Number One singles, fourteen Academy of Country Music awards, twelve Country Music Association awards and a Grammy.
8
9	Jackson also co-wrote singles for Music/FaithHill ("I Can't Do That Anymore"), Music/RandyTravis ("I'd Surrender All", "Better Class of Losers"), Music/ClayWalker ("If I Could Make a Living") and Music/ChelyWright ("Til I Was Loved by You"). His nephew Adam Wright, and Adam's wife, Shannon, record on Alan's label as The Wrights, and they have occasionally collaborated with him.
10	----
11	!!Discography
12	* ''New Traditional'' (1987, early independent album)
13	* ''Here in the Real World'' (1990, Creator/AristaRecords debut)
14	* ''Don't Rock the Jukebox'' (1991)
15	* ''A Lot About Livin' (And a Little 'bout Love)'' (1992)
16	* ''Honky Tonk Christmas'' (1993)
17	* ''Who I Am'' (1994)
18	* ''The Greatest Hits Collection'' (1995)
19	* ''Everything I Love'' (1996)
20	* ''High Mileage'' (1998)
21	* ''Under the Influence'' (1999)
22	* ''When Somebody Loves You'' (2000)
23	* ''Drive'' (2002)
24	* ''Let It Be Christmas'' (2002)
25	* ''Greatest Hits Volume II'' (2003, originally released as ''Greatest Hits Volume II... and Some Other Stuff'', featuring a bonus disc with eight album cuts)
26	* ''What I Do'' (2004)
27	* ''Precious Memories'' (2006, first Christian album)
28	* ''Like Red on a Rose'' (2006)
29	* ''Good Time'' (2008)
30	* ''Freight Train'' (2010)
31	* ''34 Number Ones'' (2010)
32	* ''Thirty Miles West'' (2012, first album for EMI Nashville)
33	* ''Precious Memories Volume II'' (2013, second Christian album)
34	* ''The Bluegrass Album'' (2013)
35	* ''Angels and Alcohol'' (2015)
36	* ''Where Have You Gone'' (2021)
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39	!!Alan Jackson and his works provide examples of:
40	* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Lampshaded on the back of his ''Who I Am'' album. The track numbers skip from 12 to 14, with a note saying, "That's right folks, I am just a tad superstitious. - AJ"
41	* AccidentalMarriage: "I Don't Even Know Your Name" has a man unintentionally fall in love with and marry a waitress after getting drunk.
42	* AlbumTitleDrop: ''A Lot About Livin' (And a Little 'bout Love)'' is named for a line in "Chattahoochee".
43	* AntiChristmasSong: "Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk This Christmas".
44	* {{Bowdlerize}}: "I'll Try" opens with the line "Here we are, talkin' bout forever / Both know damn well it's not easy together". Even though "damn" is usually considered acceptable on country radio, the line still became "both know ''too'' well" on the radio edit.
45	* ChristmasSongs: He has done two albums of Christmas music.
46	* CoverAlbum: ''Under the Influence'' was composed entirely of covers.
47	* TheCoverChangesTheGender: Done with his cover of Charly [=McClain'=] "Who's Cheatin' Who", which turns from a female perspective to a male one.
48	* DistinctDoubleAlbum: ''Greatest Hits II... and Some Other Stuff''. The "Other Stuff" was a bonus disc comprising eight cuts from previous albums that had never been released as singles.
49	* DooWopProgression: "Remember When".
50	* DrowningMySorrows: "Jim and Jack and Hank" is about a man who has just been abandoned by his wife, but decides that he's going to be fine because he's got alcohol and country music.[[note]]"Jim" and "Jack" respectively refers to Jim Beam and Jack Daniels whiskey. While Hank refers to Music/HankWilliams.[[/note]]
51	-->''So I got out the whiskey''\
52	''I began to listen to songs out in my truck you couldn't crank''\
53	''I started feeling empty, then again it hit me''\
54	''I've got Jim and Jack and Hank''
55	* DyingTown: The town in "Little Man" is dying off because its small business owners are losing out against the big chain stores.
56	* EverythingIsAnInstrument: Alan "plays" a hammer striking an anvil on "Hard Hat and a Hammer."
57	* GenerationalSaga: The first two verses of "Drive (For Daddy Gene)" are about Alan learning how to drive as a boy, as he remembers his father's teachings and how he proud he was to receive approval. The final verse has Alan hoping that one day, his daughters will remember his instructing them with the same level of fondness.
58	* HardTruckin: The subject of "Where I Come From" is a truck driver who travels across the country and finds things such as cuisine and people's behavior to be different than his Southern upbringing.
59	* HeavyMeta: "Three Minute Positive Not-Too-Country Up-Tempo Love Song" and "Don't Rock the Jukebox" both qualify.
60	* ImAManICantHelpIt: In "Work in Progress", he admits to being forgetful and careless, but pleads with her to be patient because he's a work in progress.
61	* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: "So You Don't Have to Love Me Anymore".
62	* ItWillNeverCatchOn: According to the liner notes of his first GreatestHitsAlbum, Jackson thought that "Chattahoochee" was too dependent on a localized reference (the Chattahoochee River on the Alabama/Georgia border) to become a hit. His worries were for naught, as it remains one of his biggest hits.
63	* LyricalDissonance:
64	** "I'll Go On Loving You" is awfully melancholy for a love song to his wife. It doesn't help that it bears a striking melodical resemblance to "[[Series/{{MASH}} Suicide Is Painless]]".
65	** In the other direction, "Don't Rock the Jukebox" is pretty upbeat for a song about a guy trying to convince people to not play upbeat songs so he can commiserate.
66	** "Pop a Top" is a toe-tapping song about DrowningMySorrows.
67	* LyricSwap:
68	** "Where I Come From" can't seem to make up its mind whether the chorus is referring to pickin' or sittin', and whether it's on the front or back porch.
69	** Similarly, the third chorus of "I Still Like Bologna" changes "the sound of a whippoorwill down a country road" to "…a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley-Davidson_Shovelhead_engine shovelhead]] down a gravel road".
70	** The last iteration of "Country Boy"'s chorus changes "Up city streets, down country roads" to "winding roads".
71	* LoggingOntoTheFourthWall: Jackson created an "alanjacksonmemory.com" website as a tie-in to his 2000 single "www.memory".
72	* LyricalColdOpen: "Don't Rock the Jukebox"
73	* LyricalShoehorn: Quite a few in the third and fourth verses of "Where I Come From", which are composed of awkward phrasings and rhymes that barely make sense (for instance, "lost a universal joint and had to use my finger" -- possibly dialing a phone for help or hitchhiking?).
74	* MidwordRhyme: The first chorus to "Like Red on a Rose":
75	-->And I love you like only little children love pennies
76	-->And I love you 'cause I know that I can't do any—
77	-->—thing wrong
78	* NewMediaAreEvil: Subverted in "I Still Like Bologna", where he says that he is perfectly fine with technological advancements such as the Internet, cell phones, plasma television, and the like, and can appreciate their place in modern society -- but that no amount of technology can replace the beauty of nature or a woman's love, or just something simple like bologna on white bread.
79	* ThePowerOfLove: Referenced in "Love's Got a Hold on You":
80	-->I called my doctor on the telephone\
81	"Help me, Doc, there's something wrong\
82	I can't shake it it's gone too far"\
83	He said, "tell me what your symptoms are"\
84	I said, "My hands are sweaty and my knees are weak\
85	I can't eat and I can't sleep\
86	It's turning me every way but loose"\
87	He said, "it sounds like love's got a hold on you\
88	No doubt love's got a hold on you"
89	** Pretty much the premise of "Livin' On Love"
90	* RearrangeTheSong:
91	** "I'll Go On Loving You", from ''High Mileage'', was re-recorded in 1999 as a duet with ''sertanejo'' musician Leonardo (of the duo Leandro e Leonardo) singing some of the verses in Portuguese.
92	** He re-recorded "A Woman's Love", also from ''High Mileage'', for 2007's ''Like Red on a Rose''. The re-recorded version was that album's second single.
93	** "Chattahoochee" got an extended remix for the music video. Said remix later appeared on his first GreatestHitsAlbum.
94	** Possibly as an homage to the various "line dance" remixes of TheNineties, "Good Time" got a "Too Hot to Fish" remix that amped up the rhythm section and added a few vocal effects.
95	* RecordProducer: He's worked with Keith Stegall on all but one album (the aforementioned ''Like Red on a Rose'', produced by bluegrass queen Music/{{Alison Krauss\|And Union Station}}). Scott Hendricks (Music/RestlessHeart, Music/BlakeShelton) co-produced the first two and "Tonight I Climbed the Wall" off the third, and his nephew Adam Wright co-produced his 2013 bluegrass album.
96	* RereleaseTheSong: Alan wanted to release "Home" off his first album, but decided against it because there was another song out by Music/JoeDiffie that had the same title. The original recording ended up as a BSide for several other singles before finally getting released off a GreatestHitsAlbum in 1996.
97	* RepurposedPopSong: His version of "Mercury Blues" was rewritten to be about Ford trucks and used in mid-nineties Ford commercials.
98	* RewindGag: The last minute of the "Like Red on a Rose" music video is just the video rewinding.
99	* RockstarSong: "Chasin' That Neon Rainbow" is about a man's desire to rise to the top as a country singer.
100	* SelfBackingVocalist: He often does his own backing vocals. And it shows.
101	* SignatureStyle: He tends to use the same musicians from album to album, helping to define his ThreeChordsAndTheTruth style even more. Not unlike Music/GeorgeStrait, he tends toward spare, uncluttered production most of the time, dominated by Brent Mason's "chicken pickin'" style of guitar playing along with healthy doses of fiddle and steel. Unlike Strait, Jackson writes the majority of his songs and has a more twangy voice.
102	* SomethingBlues: "Mercury Blues," "Summertime Blues," "The Talkin' Song Repair Blues." Punned in "She's Got the Rhythm and I've Got the Blues," in which the "blues" are his post-break up feelings.
103	* TheSomethingSong: "Three Minute Positive Not-Too-Country Up-Tempo Love Song". Also an example of AntiLoveSong, RunningTimeInTheTitle, HeavyMeta and ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
104	* SpellingSong: "Good Time" has the lyric "G with an O, O with a D / T with an I and an M and an E / That spells 'good time'."
105	* TakeThat:
106	** "Murder on Music Row," his duet with Music/GeorgeStrait, decries the crossover-happy country music climate of the TurnOfTheMillennium.
107	** "Gone Country" pokes fun at musicians from other genres who decide to GenreShift to country, portraying them as [[OnlyInItForTheMoney only doing it for money]] because their careers in their original genres have stalled.
108	* TelephoneSong: "Wanted" has the narrator calling to place a "want ad" apologizing to the woman who left him and asking her to come back.
109	* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: Jackson is clearly influenced by the no-frills storytelling songs from the likes of Music/MerleHaggard.
110	* TitleOnlyChorus: "I'll Go On Loving You".
111	* TruckDriversGearChange: A few occasions.
112	** "Remember When" begins in G, modulates down to C for a solo, and then goes up to A for the final verses.
113	** "The Talkin' Song Repair Blues" does the half-step-by-verse variant, going from D to E-flat to E.
114	** He also wrote Music/ClayWalker's "If I Could Make a Living", which begins in F, then repeats the chorus in G and again in A at the end.
115	* VisualPun: The video for "She's Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues)", upon reaching the line "She spells out 'regret' in perfect time", has a woman literally moving her hands in the direction of the letters R-E-G-R-E-T as they appear onscreen.
116	* VocalEvolution: His delivery was a bit more clipped and deep on ''New Traditional'' before going up to its familiar tone on ''Here in the Real World''. Age has caused it to gradually deepen again, with a change evident as early as ''High Mileage''; since about "Long Way to Go", his voice seems to have also gotten softer and weaker.
117	* WatchingTheSunset: Mentioned in "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)".
118	* WentCrazyWhenTheyLeft: "Gone Crazy"
119	* WhatDidIDoLastNight: "I Don't Even Know Your Name" is about a man who gets drunk and marries a waitress who is missing some teeth without remembering it.
120	* WhatWouldXDo: From "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere":
121	-->'''Alan''': I could pay off my tab, pour myself in a cab
122	-->And be back to work before two
123	-->At a moment like this, I can't help but wonder
124	-->What would Music/JimmyBuffett do?
125	-->'''Jimmy''': Funny you should ask, Alan...
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Context Music / AlanJackson