Alan jackson biography cmt topics

Singer, songwriter

Traditions are sometimes forgotten in favor of the new and improved. In the early 1980s, the synthesized pop music of the urban cowboy seemed to be eclipsing country music's roots. However, in 1989 a new group of country singer/songwriters, including a tall, white-hatted Georgia boy named Alan Jackson, began to revive the country music tradition. Over the next two decades, Jackson would hit number one on the country music charts some three dozen times and win over 45 awards. But Jackson, who nearly lost his 20-year marriage to his high school sweetheart, Denise, along the way, remained humble, telling twangthis.com that he was "just a guy who sings [and who] hopes I'm keeping a little bit of traditional country music alive for the next generation so they'll know what it is."

Alan Eugene Jackson was born on October 17, 1958, in Newnan, Georgia. His father, Eugene, an auto-worker, and mother, Ruth, a homemaker, married in 1952, raising a family of seven children. While still in high school, Jackson met his future wife, Denise, at a Dairy Queen, and they married in 1979. Soon after, they moved to Nashville so Jackson could pursue a music career. While Denise worked as a flight attendant, Jackson worked odd jobs, including used car salesman

•