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 16th 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 14th 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.

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