Alan Jackson

American country music superstar Alan Jackson was born October 17, 1958
in Newnan, Georgia. In his twenties, Johnson was working as a car salesman when
he first started writing songs and moved to Nashville to launch his
professional career. Initially he worked in a mail room, but Glen Campbell
heard him and helped him get a record deal with Arista who issued his first
official album, 1990’s Here In The Real World. This gave him his first
Number 1 hit with “I'd Love You All Over Again”, setting him on his way
to becoming one of the biggest-selling country acts of the modern era, credited
with returning country to purer roots. The title track of 1991’s Don’t Rock
the Jukebox” was one four songs off that album to top the country charts,
and his popularity was such that in 1993 he almost hit the top 40 on the pop
chart with seventh number 1 country single “Chattahoochee”. 1994’s Who
I Am spun off four more number 1 country singles including “Gone Country”.
His status as an icon was underscored when two original songs from 1996’s The
Greatest Hits Collection, “Tall, Tall Trees” and “I’ll Try”
also topped the country chart. The best of collection did nothing to hinder his
popularity and his next three albums all hit number 1 or 2 on the country chart
with 1998’s High Mileage reching number 4 on the main album chart. That
album included “Right on the Money” his 16^th number 1 country
hit of the decade. Ever the traditionalist, Alan Jackson publicly derided
country music’s turn toward a more pop and arena rock sound at the turn of the
century, and his insistence on sticking to a more conservative aesthetic was
rewarded by fans with the number 1 country albums Drive and What I Do,
both of which topped the main album chart as well.  In 2002, his tribute to the victims of the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, “Where Were You (When the World
Stopped Turning)” won the Grammy for Best Country Song. 2003’s Greatest
Hits Volume II again contained two new songs that both were both country
chart toppers, including ‘It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”, a duet with
Jimmy Buffett that became his biggest pop hit, reaching number 17 on the Hot
100. 2008’s Good Time was yet another country and regular album chart
topper, and included three more country number 1 singles giving him 25 for his
career to that point. His 2006 detour to Christian music, Precious Memories
topped both the country and Christian chart, and he would return to that genre
for 2013’s Precous Memories Voulme II. After 2015’s Angels and
Alcohol, his 14^th number 1 country album, he went on tour to
celebrate his quarter century as a hitmaker. The Academy of Country Music
bestowed the Cliffie Stone Icon Award to him. Alan Jackson ended the longest
recording sabbatical of his career to that point when, six years after Angels
and Alcohol, he issued Where Have You Gone in 2021.