All language subtitles for Alan.Jackson.Small.Town.Southern.Man.2018.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

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[♪ MUSIC: "Gone Country"]

How y'all doin' tonight?

[CHEERING]

I still regard him as
the greatest country songwriter

since Merle Haggard.

He just had a way
of saying things

that people related to,
could identify with,

and I think that's the secret

to what he does
in all of his writing.

♪ She's gone country

♪ Look at them boots

♪ She's gone country

♪ Yeah, back to her roots

♪ She's gone country...

I mean, definitely had
a huge impact on me as a fan

and also, of course,
as an artist and songwriter.

♪ There, you've gone country...

[MAN] I remember
standing on stage next to him

and hearing his voice come back
through the monitors at me,

and sometimes it was so strong
and so powerful,

it would stand the hair up
on the back of my neck,

and sometimes
I would just stop playin'

because I'd be listening
to his voice

coming through that monitor,
going, "Wow."

And then I'd have to remember,

"You're supposed
to be playing, man."

♪ Well, I hear Red Rocks,
Colorado

♪ Y'all gone country

♪ Yeah, you've gone country

♪ Cos we all gone country...

[MAN] He gives you
what's in his heart,

he gives you
what he's experienced

and what he is experiencing,

and in the end
that's what we all want.

Whoo!

Thank you very much.

I grew up down there
in Newnan, Georgia,

down off of Highway 5.

There was this river down there

I always thought had a kind of
interesting little name.

I wrote this song about it.

[ALAN] I guess at the time
I wasn't that crazy

about being
somewhat moderate income,

and I had friends
that had nice homes

and air-conditioned cars
and all that kind of stuff,

and I think that's one reason
I've been so driven

to have things in my life,
cos I never had anything, but...

So at the time
I probably didn't appreciate

parts of that childhood.

He was special because they
waited so long for this boy.

They didn't think
they would ever have a boy.

They had given up.
They had four girls.

And they lost a girl at
five months between us and Con.

So they had no hope that this
last baby was gonna be a boy,

so they were ecstatic.

Connie was his nursemaid.

Yeah, they called her
his little mother.

She was just four years older.

You can look back
in some of the pictures

and she's got him by the hand.

I don't know how
he ever learned to walk.

When I look at the pictures,
I think I never let him go.

[CAROL] Yeah, you were always
holding onto him.

But I told Diane earlier today,
Mama must have been crazy,

I was only four,
to just let me have this baby.

[CATHY] She was really busy,
so while she...

She cooked three meals a day
and took care of all of us,

made all our clothes
from scratch,

so she didn't have time
to babysit either.

♪ In a small town
down in Georgia

♪ Over 40 years ago

♪ Her maiden name was Musick

♪ Till she met that Jackson boy

♪ They married young
like folks did then

♪ Not a penny to their name

♪ But they believed
the one you vow to love

♪ Should always stay the same...

[CATHY] Our grandfather
was a builder,

and he had just built himself
a nice toolshed,

excited about using it,
I'm sure,

and then they got married,
Mom was 16 and Daddy was 19,

and they had nowhere to live,
no money, nowhere to go,

so he had to give 'em
that toolshed to live in.

[DIANE] It's part
of the house now.

It actually is sort of
the centre of the house.

- It's the den of the house.
- The centre room.

And all the other rooms were
built around it, you know, as...

Every time they had a child,
they added another room.

♪ And they made
that house a home

♪ And they taught us
'bout good livin'

♪ They taught us
right from wrong...

[DIANE] He had to sleep
in the hall,

cos there wasn't room in the
house for him to have a bedroom.

- Not until you moved out.
- I was gonna say.

When I moved out, he was so glad
because he could have my room.

He finally got a bedroom
of his own.

It was our room.

People have told that story
about him sleeping in the hall

a thousand times,

but the hall was almost as wide
as this room.

It was probably
as big as this room.

It was just an area of the hall
set aside, yeah.

Yeah, and so instead of a wall
being built there,

that section of the hall
became his section of that room.

But that hall now
is a full bathroom,

with double sinks and a tub and
all of that, so it's a big room.

It's not near as big
as this room, though.

- Maybe half.
- It maybe would come to here.

- OK, maybe this.
- [LAUGHTER]

- Maybe it was kind of small.
- It was small.

♪ And they made their house
from a toolshed

♪ Granddaddy rolled out
on two logs

♪ And they built walls
all around it

♪ And they made
that house a home

♪ And they taught us
'bout good livin'

♪ They taught us
right from wrong...

I had great parents
and my life was very simple,

but it was also very calm.

There wasn't a lot of drama
and a lot of turbulence there

that so many people
have to live through,

regardless of their income.

So as I've gotten older,
I've learned to appreciate that

and just the attention that
we got and the love from them

was what was the value,

and even though
my daddy was very quiet,

never said he loved me
and all that kind of stuff,

it was always understood,

and I've learned to maybe

not be quite so quiet as him
with my kids,

but he had some great qualities.

But, yeah, I was very fortunate
to be raised by two people

who had a great relationship
with each other

and were committed
to their family.

That's what made us turn out
semi-normal, I think.

[♪ MUSIC: "Livin' On Love"]

♪ Two old people without a thing

♪ Children gone
but still they sing

♪ Side by side
on that front-porch swing

♪ Livin' on love...

[CATHY] I remember Alan'd
come in and listen to us sing.

Like, if Carol and Mary and I
were practising our trio stuff

when we were little girls,

he would come and stand
beside us and listen.

And one time he asked,
"Can I sing with y'all?"

We didn't know what to tell him,
what part to tell him to sing,

but he was interested,
he was listening.

[CAROL] He sang in a quartet,

barber-shop quartet
in high school,

and they won a prize,
wherever it was they went.

[CATHY] He sang
at his own wedding.

[CAROL] Yeah, sang to Denise,
and that was the second time

we heard him sing a solo,
I guess.

He was definitely grown before
we heard him open his mouth.

And then after that, he got
started with the local band.

I really was not that interested
in music early on,

and I got a guitar
when I was in high school

and kind of had a band
like a lot of people do

and I was quite a bit older
before I decided

to really try to make a career
out of it and move up here.

He was singing at a wedding

for who was my brother-in-law
at the time.

And I remember sitting there
and hearing this guy sing

and thinking to myself,

"His voice is filling
this whole church up,"

and his pitch was perfect.

And at the time I was trying
to get a little band started

and I had some equipment set up
down there in the basement,

and we wondered downstairs
and he saw the equipment

and asked me if I was in a band.

And I said, "Well, I'm trying
to get a band started

and we're looking for a singer,
somebody to front the band."

So I called the guys that were
in the band at the time

and I said, "Look, I think
I've found us a singer."

"This guy's really good

and I think with him
fronting the band,

we could get out
of the basement."

About halfway
through the first song,

I was looking
at the other guys' faces

and I was thinking, "Yeah,
they're along for the ride."

"They see the same thing I see."

And that's how
the band Dixie Steel was born.

[WOMAN] At first I think
it was just fun,

something to do on the weekends.

But then the more he played
and the more people heard him,

the more he began to hear,
"Boy, you're really good..."

Hey, Alan. How you doin'?

Great. How you doin'?
Good to see you.

When are you gonna let me
buy that old Chevy?

I can't sell that car.
I've had it too long.

Too many memories there.
I'm gonna fix it up someday.

You know you're never
gonna fix it up.

Yeah, someday
it's gonna be a classic.

750 cash. That's my last offer.

- Can't do it. Thanks anyway.
- OK.

[ALAN] I was a regular person,
a regular working man,

had all different kind of jobs
and careers

and had been married
for a lot of years.

I'd lived all that before
I ever got the opportunity

to make records,

so I think that's helped me...

Had I been 19 years old

and all of a sudden,
bam, I'm a big superstar,

you'd never have a chance
to really grow up and live,

and... and then it's hard to...

and then after that
nothing's normal,

so you never have that normality
to draw from,

and I think that's probably
what's helped me

continue to be able to write
from that position.

[DIANE] He was always interested in being financially successful.

[CATHY]
He was serious about that.

He was building houses
and selling cars.

[CONNIE]
He worked at the shoe store

for starting with at age 12.

[DIANE] He'd bring his change
home at night

- up to the kitchen table...
- He waited tables.

He would sit with Mother.

And they would put the change
together in the wrappers.

You know, he was...
He saved his money.

[CONNIE]
He was saving for this...

[DIANE] Probably it was
for the T-bird. He saved it.

[CONNIE] He wanted a car,

cos there's nothing that's more important to Daddy and to Alan

than things that move.

♪ Smiling like a hero

♪ He just received his medal

♪ It was just an old
hand-me-down Ford

♪ Three speed on a column
and a dent in the door

♪ A young boy
Two hands on the wheel

♪ I can't replace
the way it made me feel

♪ And I would press that clutch

♪ And I'd keep it right

♪ He'd say "A little slower, son You're doing just fine"

[ALAN] I rode many bikes
and motorcycles

and go-karts when I was young,

and I guess
the earliest remembrance I had

of actually driving
a full-grown vehicle

was we'd go to the trash dump
in that truck.

I wrote about it in Drive.
And that's what we did.

And they had long dirt roads
in there and there's no traffic,

so he'd let me drive
when we were at the trash dump,

cos we were on a main road.

I drove boats earlier than that, cos boats were different.

You could drive a boat
without running into somebody.

He was always out
riding mini-bikes and go-karts.

He stole
all our Barbie doll cars

and tied 'em up
to the back of his bicycle

and took off with them,

so they were bumping along
behind his bicycle.

That sounded pretty good.

Alan Jackson grew up
in this kind of,

bucolic Georgia setting,

and he was inspired
by country music,

honky-tonk music, roots music,
of the American South,

and out on the left coast
with Merle Haggard as well.

But the music
was music for good times,

music for hard times,
a lot of storytelling music.

He was inspired by people
like Tom T. Hall,

who could write
their own stories into song.

And he was also inspired
by people like George Jones,

one of the greatest singers ever to put wind into a microphone,

who wasn't so much
a story writer

as a singer who could excavate
his very soul

right in front of a microphone.

I guess the more we played,
people would encourage you,

say, "Man, y'all sound good"
or "You sound good."

"You ought to think about
singing for a living."

And I guess after a while

I thought, well, got enough
confidence to try it, so I did.

[DENISE] We were still living
in Newnan.

I was commuting
out of the Atlanta airport

and I saw Glen
in the boarding area,

and I just am not the type
to approach people,

but I just thought,
"This may be our only chance."

"I have to do it."
So I approached Glen.

And he basically gave me
his manager's card,

the guy that ran his publishing
company in Nashville.

He asked me if Alan wrote songs
and I said no.

And he said, "Well, he needs
to start writing himself

and just put together
a demo tape

and go see Marty at my office
and see if he can help him."

And that was
our first connection.

He came down to my house.

He lived right up the street,
of course.

And he said, "I need to talk."

And I said,
"What do you wanna talk about?"

He'd come over there
all the time just to bum around.

And he said, "I'm unhappy
with what I'm doing in my life."

"I'm sick of selling cars."

"I don't wanna build
any more houses."

I said, "What do you wanna do?"
He said, "I wanna sing."

And I remember saying,
it's funny now,

I said, "Can you sing?"

[LAUGHTER]

And I said...
Cos I'd never heard him sing.

You wouldn't have. I know.

And he said,
"Yeah, I think I can."

And I remember
saying this to him.

Cos we had been gone
a long time and we were older.

I said, "Well,
what have you gotta do?"

He said, "I think
I'll have to move to Nashville."

I said, "Well,
I think you should go."

I said, "You can always leave,
come back,

but you can't always go."

I said, "Now you're young,
you have no children,

you're free, go."

And, of course, the next day

my mother was frantically
calling me on the telephone.

"You gotta come talk to Alan."

"He's moving to Nashville,
selling all his stuff."

I said, "I don't think
you want me to."

[LAUGHTER]

"I told him to go."

But that's how that started.

And Daddy told him
the same thing.

Daddy encouraged him.

He said, "You don't wanna be
80 years old

and wonder if you ever could
have done that had you tried."

He said, "You gotta go try,

and if it doesn't work out,
you can come back."

And he wrote that song recently,
You Can Always Come Back.

And that's what Daddy told him.

That was something that Daddy...

That was a quote
that he remembered.

♪ Spread your wings

♪ Don't be afraid to try

♪ The world can be hard

♪ You gotta live a little
'fore you die

♪ So open that door

♪ Step out
in the bright sunshine

♪ Follow your heart

♪ And remember anytime

♪ You can always come home

♪ Wherever life's road leads

♪ You can get back

♪ To a love
that's strong and free

♪ You'll never be alone...

He came over to the house
one day and he said,

"Look, I think that Denise and I
are gonna move to Nashville

and I'm gonna try
to give this thing a go."

And I was thinking,

"Man, I don't know
if I would go to a place

where there's thousands
of other people

wanting to do the same thing."

But I knew
that he had the talent,

he had the work ethics
and the drive,

and he had the personality.

He was real humble,

and if you met Alan,
you just liked him.

So I figured he had
as good a shot as anybody

and I said, "Look, you know,
go ahead and do this, man."

"Go do it,

and we'll save your place
in the band for you,

and if it don't work out, then
you can come on back to Newnan

and we'll keep going."

He said, "Well, I kind of hope
you all do keep playing."

I said, "Yeah,
we're gonna keep playing."

And that's kind of what we did.

♪ Daddy won a radio

♪ He tuned it to a country show

♪ I was rockin' in the cradle to the cryin' of a steel guitar

♪ Mama used to sing to me

♪ She taught me
that sweet harmony

♪ Now she worries
cos she never thought

♪ I'd never really
take it this far

♪ Singin' in the bars
and chasin' that neon rainbow

♪ Livin' that honky-tonk dream

♪ Cos all I've ever wanted

♪ Is to pick this guitar
and sing

♪ Just tryin' to be somebody

♪ Just wanna be heard and seen

♪ I'm chasin' that neon rainbow

♪ Livin' that
honky-tonk dream...

[MAN] Denise was, I guess,
the breadwinner.

She was a flight attendant.

And Alan was making $50 a week.

And...

Yeah, I mean,
I was here five years

and making demos
whenever I could

and pitching 'em
to record labels,

and I got passed on by
every label in town at the time,

some of 'em twice,
and some of 'em were...

some of 'em
were real discouraging,

you know, their responses.

But I guess I'm hard-headed.

In some ways it made me
wanna succeed more, I guess,

so I kept trying, but the year
I finally got something going,

I was about... tired, you know,
I was about ready to give it up.

[MAN] I can remember
here in Nashville,

he played a club
called Cruisers.

There were five people in there, counting Alan,

and it was myself,
my wife, his wife

and some old drunk woman.

[LAUGHS]

But he played it like
he was playing to 20,000 people.

I've had it easier
than probably some people,

but I still heard a lot of no's
and a lot of doors closed

and people telling me that
I ought to go back to Georgia.

Had a record executive
actually say that one time.

I think country music
in the '80s

was this odd brand
of pop synthesisers,

and traditional country music
was really not very...

I don't wanna say respected,
it just wasn't very prominent,

it wasn't really
part of the mix.

Some folks were thinking that
country music had lost its way

and that a lot
of what was on the radio

was kind of pale replications
of pop music

that had been popular
a few years before that,

kind of like the second lap
of that watered down.

[MCBRIDE] We were still
kind of in the aftermath

of the urban cowboy era,

and if you go back and listen
to the music in the mid '80s,

you will see that a lot of it
was kind of pop,

cos that's kind of the way
Nashville is.

It's, like, that crossed over
to the pop charts,

so let's do that.

I don't think
they really believed

in that traditional
country sound

and that it could ever be
that big, you know.

As the saying says,
"Too country for country."

And Alan would
very respectfully tell them,

"You need to get out
from behind your desk

and go out
and go to these honky tonks.

People love it.
They love this kind of music.

The artists are singing
about life in most instances.

There's definitely songs
that are more just for fun

or blowing off steam
or whatever,

but, I mean,
they're singing songs

for and about the every man,
you know.

It's not look at my, you know,

look at all the things I have
or my car or, like...

It's not that.

It's more like, I'm like you.
I understand you.

You can turn on the radio
and relate.

In 1981, Ricky Skaggs
and George Strait came along

and got the wheels turning for
something that would be called

the new traditionalism or
the neotraditionalist movement,

music that was brand-new

but that hearkened back to
honky-tonk sounds of the '50s

or, in Ricky Skaggs' case,

hearkened back to bluegrass music of the '40s.

Skaggs and Strait
were fantastic,

as was another major influence
on Alan, Randy Travis,

who came along in the mid '80s.

And these people gave Alan
a licence to do what he did.

They paved the way.

Randy Travis came along.

I met him in '81 and I thought,

"Dear God,
please give this man a chance."

In 1987,
he put outStorms of Life

and kicked the door wide open.

There were people
who were doing quite well

with that
middle-of-the-road stuff,

and they lost their deals
because now it's, like,

you got Clint Black
and Alan and Garth

and the whole bunch
two years later.

But Randy...
Randy kicked that down.

[WOMAN]
There was that whole class

of Alan Jackson, George Strait,

Ricky Skaggs, Randy Travis,
Dwight Yoakam.

They, you know,
those guys all did

a lot more traditional-leaning
country music,

and they were much more
in the vein, in my mind,

they were like mavericks, like
a Hank Williams would have been

or like a Johnny Cash
would have been.

So even though it was

on the more traditional side
of country music,

it was edgier than a lot
of the middle-of-the-road stuff

that was being made
at that time.

♪ Yeah, he's gone country

♪ A new kind of walk
He's gone country

♪ A new kind of talk
He's gone country

♪ Look at them boots
He's gone country

♪ Oh, back to his roots
He's gone country...

On Music Row, like a lot
of the music business, I guess,

the wheels move slow,

and too slow for him many times,

and I think
his frustration sometimes

led him to think maybe
"This isn't for me."

Then he would write a great song and he'd get fired up again

and say, "You know what?
I'm gonna do this."

This is a tough business
and, I mean...

Not tough like
busting rock tough

but tough like on you mentally
and emotionally and all that.

But at the end of the day,
Alan's kind of like me.

It's like this is what we do,
you know.

So what are you gonna do? Give up and go home and do what?

I mean, you know,
this is all I know how to do,

and I'm sure some of that

was playing on his heart
and his mind too, you know.

This is kind of it.
You don't give up cos you can't.

♪ Cos sometimes someday

♪ Just never comes

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

[ALAN] Before I moved
to Nashville,

I never really tried
writing songs, but...

One guy I knew down there
from home

that had a band and had done
some recording in Atlanta,

from down around Georgia,

he said, "Man, if you're gonna
go up to Nashville,

you gotta have
some reasonable material."

"You can't go up there singing
covers and everybody's stuff."

I said, "OK." So I started
writing a few things.

And I went in this little studio
in the basement of a house

and laid 'em down and packed up

and took 'em with me
to Nashville.

But he wouldn't have
gotten there

without your help, remember?

I don't know if he would or not.

- Mm-mm.
- Why?

Remember you had to give him
the money.

Oh, I gave him some money, yeah,
for that first bunch of stuff.

Yeah, nobody else
would give him the money.

He couldn't get a bank
in Newnan

to loan him the money
to get some demo tapes done.

Yeah, some demo tapes, and I...

- That's sad.
- It was sad.

And he called me and...
We didn't have any money.

- No, none of us had any money.
- But we had credit.

And I told Jim. He said, "Do you
think we should give him some?"

I said, "Yeah, we should
give him some money."

So we went to the bank and
borrowed nine or ten thousand.

I thought it was nine.
I don't remember now.

To give to him.
We sent it to him.

- That's a lot of money.
- It was a lot of money.

- It was to us at the time.
- Still is.

And we just paid on it
every month.

It was just a note to the bank
and we paid on it for years.

And when he got
that first record deal,

he gave it back to me.

And I said,
"Thank you. I appreciate it."

Cos I still needed it.

But I would have never thought
not to give it to him.

[CONNIE] No.

[MAN] The first day
he came to my office,

I asked him
if I could hear some music,

cos I had
a prior meeting with him

where I'd heard songs,

him singing
other people's songs,

and he was pitched to me
as a management client

singing other people's songs.

And I sort of said,

"Well, I can see why
you're not getting a record deal

and I just don't think
these work."

I thought they were Alan's songs, cos he was a songwriter.

And he came over to my office
three or four days later

and said,
"Can I just come and visit?"

"I loved your honesty.
I'd love to talk to you again."

And it was, like,
"What should I do?"

And I said, "Well, I didn't hear
any of your songs."

He said, "I don't know whether
I've got any good songs."

And I said,
"Well, I'd love to hear them."

And he said, "Yeah, I don't
really have any good demos."

And I said, "Well,
have you got anything?"

And he was, like, "Well, yeah,
I've got some things."

So he went out to his truck,
it was an old Dodge truck,

as is depicted in Neon Rainbow,

and he came back in
and he had this little kit bag

and it had room, probably,
for five cassettes in it.

And he pulled out a cassette
and he said,

"This is a ballad,
but I really like it."

And he played me Wanted.

♪ Excuse me, ma'am

♪ Can you help me?

♪ I need to place an ad
with you today...

I was, like,
"Whoa. I love this."

He was, like, "Really?"

And I said, "Yeah. What else
have you got in there?"

And he pulled out
another cassette

and it was Neon Rainbow.

And he said to me, he said,

"People tell me this is
too personal and, you know."

"But it's sort of about me."

And I was, like,
"This is perfect."

"This is just the most wonderful
description of who you are."

And...

"Really? You like that?"

I was, like,
"What else have you got?"

And he played me
a song called Home.

He said, "This is about
my mummy and daddy

and it's probably too personal
for everybody."

And it was a song
that we put on the first album,

but it never came out
as a single

until the greatest hits album
came out some years later,

and it was added to that

and became
a really big single as well.

So they were the first
three songs I ever heard.

I had kind of tiptoed
into producing by...

I worked with Kyle Lehning

and we did the first tracks
on Randy Travis's first record.

And I was an artist at the time,

and I was still
actively on the road

with a bus and a band
and all that stuff,

and I opted out
of that production relationship

and I told Kyle, Randy,
I just said, you know,

"I just feel guilty
that I can't be here for you."

So I bowed out
and continued to be an artist,

losing money
head over heels on the road.

It was just killing me.

And I remember
I had parked my bus one night

at a grocery store right up the
road from where I was living,

I was walking back,
walked past the mailbox,

opened up the mailbox and there
was this big envelope in there

from Warner Bros Records.

And I opened it up and there was
a cheque in there for $13,000,

and I went, "Oh, my," you know.

"I just lost $20,000
on the road this weekend."

And at that point
I thought to myself, you know,

"The next artist
that comes through

the path that leads through my
life that I get excited about,

I'm gonna stay the course."

And remarkably it was Alan
and I thought,

"OK, I don't need to be
reminded of this twice."

So I sold my bus to Randy Travis

and really kind of retired
as an artist

to become a record producer.

[ALAN] He got me on tape
in the beginning

that caught the ear
of Tim DuBois

that got me
the initial record deal,

so even those first demos I made
to get a record deal,

they haven't changed much.

I mean, what we make now
sounds pretty much the same

as far as production
and style of song.

[MAN] Alan came
into my knowledge

because Shelby Kennedy
passed a cassette to me

and said, "Take a listen to it."

And I listened to six songs
that he and Keith had done

and was very impressed.

And Tim called me and said,

"Mister, I really like
these songs," you know.

"I'd really like to talk to you
about this."

"When can I see him play?"

And I said, "Next Tuesday."

And Tim said,
"I'm sorry, mister."

"I'm gonna be out of town."

He said,
"When can I see him again?"

And I said,
"Well, the following week

you can see him
in Homestead, Florida,

and then the following week
you can see him in Delaware."

He said, "When's he playing
Nashville next?"

I said, "I don't know. He's only
ever played Nashville twice."

And Tim called me back
about an hour later and said,

"I'll be there."

I knew it was something special
that night

and I reached out very quickly
to Barry Coburn, his manager,

and I said,
"Let's get this deal done."

Tim invited me over and said,
"What are we gonna do?"

And I said,
"I'd really like to know more

about what
this record company's gonna be."

And later that afternoon
I got a call at the office

and said,
"It's Clive Davis's office."

"They wanna know
if you'll meet with Clive Davis

tomorrow at 2pm."

I said, "Say yes."

Well, Clive came to town
for our grand opening,

and I think that Alan
and Barry Coburn

both wanted to hear
directly from Clive,

yeah,
we're really gonna do this,

we're really gonna start
a country music label.

And it took that little
extra nudge, I think,

to get him to believe in us,
cos we were brand-new.

We were as new as he was to
the scene at that point in time.

I started calling Alan
that morning

and I eventually got through
to him about 12:30.

And I said, "Look,
I've got this meeting set up."

"It's with Arista Records.
Clive Davis is coming down."

And he said,
"I've been working on my van

and I just banged my head
and I'm bleeding,

and the top of my head
is bleeding,

and I just don't think
I can get there."

"I'm covered
in grease and dirt."

And then a few minutes later
he called me back and said,

"Well, if I come,
what will I wear?"

And he came and we got in my car

and he said,
"So who are we going to meet?"

And I said, "It's Clive Davis."

I said, "He's got Barry Manilow,
Whitney Houston, Kenny G."

And he said,
"That ain't country."

"What does he know
about country music?"

He was smart enough to bring
people in like Tim DuBois,

who had some history in the
town, and trusted Tim's ears,

and it's really Tim's ears
we're talking about here

because he was the one
that actually took the chance

when we had been turned down
by everybody in town.

And then Clive Davis set off
and explained Arista Records

and what he wanted to do
and what the intention was here.

And we got to the end and
he said, "So what do you think?"

"Will you be
the flagship artist?"

And I said,
"We need to think about it."

And he said, "What do you need
to think about?"

I said, "Well, we need
to consult with Alan's attorney

and we need to just make
a determination."

"Well, how long will that take?"

I said, "No, no, just give us
a couple of days."

As Alan shook hands with Clive,

he said, "Mr Davis, it's been
a real pleasure to meet you.

If I'd known
what I know now about you,

I would have been
too scared to come."

Which Clive
just, of course, loved.

It was just perfect.

And we left and as we walked out
of the building, you know,

he said, "What are you doing?"

"That man offered me
a record deal."

"We've been trying to get a
record deal and you've said no."

I said, "We've gotta play it.
We wanna get the right deal."

[OVERTON] Again, this is
something that he lived for,

breathed for,
bled for, you name it,

sacrificed for,
and Denise did too,

and Tim was relentless,
you know.

And other labels,
they were hovering,

cos they heard
there was interest,

but no one else was putting
a contract in front of him

like Tim DuBois did.

I said, "Bring in
all the stuff you've written,

even work tapes,
and let's sit and listen

and then we'll fill in the gaps

with outside songs
if we need to."

And he came in literally
with a croker sack

full of songs,
full of cassettes,

and it was at that point in time
that I recognised the depth

and recognised
what a lucky man I was,

because he had song after song.

There were songs in that sack

that carried us all the way
into the third album.

If I remember, there's
at least one, maybe two songs,

that were in that sack
on the third album.

[COBURN] The record contract
was signed 12 days later,

and the album was finished
14 days after the show.

We actually signed the contract
over in OMNI Studios

and then started cutting and the
album was done in three days,

and it was those nine songs,

plus Tim DuBois added
one outside song.

♪ She loves the violin
I love the fiddle

♪ We go separate ways
But we meet in the middle

♪ Don't see eye to eye
But we're hand in hand

♪ The blue-blooded woman
and her redneck man...

[DUNGAN] Whenever you're introducing a new artist

and talking about trying
to get that artist on the radio,

there seems to be
an issue with tempo,

and it's always easier
to ingest new artists' music

when it's got life
and it's got tempo

and it's got some bounce to it.

And for whatever reason,
Tim and his team at the time

decided that they were gonna go

with the song called
Blue Blooded Woman.

He called me one day and
he said, "What are you doing?"

I said, "You know, not much."

He said,
"Why don't you come over?

We'll have pizza
and watch TV."

"OK." He said, "Bring your
wife, Jan." I said, "OK."

So we went over to the house,
and pizza's already there,

has a couple of beers
out for us.

So we ate our pizza
and drank beer

and he turns on the TV,
scans the channels and says,

"There's nothing on."

"Why don't we call
radio stations,

to see if they'll play
my record?"

[CHUCKLES]

And we said, "OK."

And so he said,
"Well, Jan," which is my wife,

"and Denise,
y'all are Southern girls."

Y'all will call
the Southern states.

Gary, you're from New Jersey.

You can cover
the rest of the United States."

And we're, like,
"What do we do?"

He says, "I've got the numbers
from the record company here."

"We'll just start calling 'em
and ask them to play that."

"But don't be so obvious."
So it was really funny.

So we sat there for hours
calling radio stations,

saying, "Hey, would you play

that Blue Blooded Womansong
by Alan Jackson?"

They're, like, "I don't think
I've got a copy of that."

We'd go, "Yes, you do." And
they'd go, "How do you know?"

"Oh. I bet you do," you know.
It was pretty funny.

But Alan was always scheming
on how to further his career,

and so it was Alan, Denise,
Jan and I and Ethel the cat

calling radio stations
from that little apartment.

Blue Blooded Woman,
Redneck Mandid OK,

and I remember
it had a real presence

on the country video networks,

but it didn't go to the top
of the radio charts,

and there's worry
when that happens.

What you want is the number one
out of the box,

you want the rocket ship,

and Alan wasn't piloting
a rocket ship.

It lasted, I don't know, three
or four weeks, not very long,

and died a miserable,
miserable death.

I've been working for years
in Nashville

to get a record contract,
and I finally did,

and we were so excited
and recorded an album

and put the first song out,
and it didn't do good at all.

And I was sad.

And I was bummed out,
came home.

My wife, she looked at me
and said she was pregnant

and neither one of us
were ready for that

and it was a tough time.

I thought, "I'm gonna have to
go back to work, I guess."

- And then we...
- [MAN] Alan Jackson!

And then we put this song out.

Put this song out
and I haven't worked since.

♪ Cowboys don't cry

♪ And heroes don't die

♪ And good always wins

♪ Again and again

♪ And love is a sweet dream

♪ That always comes true

♪ Oh, if life were like
the movies

♪ I'd never be blue

♪ But here in the real world

♪ It's not that easy at all

♪ Cos when hearts get broken

♪ It's real tears that fall...

[OVERTON] I'm sure the promotion
people that called radio

for Arista Records were, like,
"Oh, my gosh."

"It's a ballad, it's really
country, with fiddles and steel,

and, ah, man, this is probably
not a good idea."

But it certainly was.
It was his first number one.

I remember thinking,
"Whoa. Who is this?"

Because, again, it sounded like
he was telling a story,

a real story
that really happened to him,

and it went like,
"Hey, girl," you know.

"You look good in those shorts"
or whatever.

It was, like, this is something
that happened to me.

And I loved that and...

just the honesty, really,
struck a chord with me.

When I heard the song and,
of course, Alan wrote the song,

co-wrote it, I think, and he
wrote the song, sang the song,

and then when I saw the guy
and the video,

I thought, you know,
how can this miss?

You know? It's gotta go.

[COOPER] It was a song
about values,

it was a song about heartbreak

and it was a song about reality

and it was a ballad,

and it resonated.

And people heard the depth
and texture in his voice

and they understood
that this was something new

and they'd been waiting on it,

they just didn't know
they'd been waiting on it.

[DUBOIS]
It just established the fact

that this guy's different,
he's real, he's genuine.

It was the start of something
really wonderful

cos radio embraced that song
and took it to number one.

We had tracked that song earlier

and something... it didn't work.

I remember I was sitting
up in the window at OmniSound,

and Alan, he said,
"What's the matter?"

I said, "I don't think
we have that track."

He said, "You don't?"
I said, "No."

And he goes,
"Well, let's do it again."

And so at this point

the musicians
are already signing the card

and putting
their instruments away.

We're getting ready to leave
and I said,

"Guys, would you all, please,
just one more shot at this?"

"And, Rob, do some
of the Mel Tillis fiddle stuff

we were talking about earlier."

And there it was.

So it was that close
to not happening,

and it was really
the breakthrough record.

- Mr Alan Jackson.
- Yeah!

♪ Before you drop that quarter

♪ Keep one thing in mind

♪ You got a heartbroke hillbilly

♪ Standing here in line

♪ I've been down and lonely...

[ALAN] I think everything was
real overwhelming at the time.

And I was just so excited

about just having
the record deal itself,

and the next step was trying
to get ahead on radio,

which I finally did,

and, yeah, it just seemed to be
snowballing after that

and really going fast.

We were playing
up in Doswell, Virginia,

this old truck stop that had
these lounges upstairs,

and they was
real nice places and...

after one of those long nights
there, we took a little break

and I walked over to the jukebox

and Roger, he was playing bass
with me back then,

and he was already over at
the jukebox reading the records.

And I leaned up on the corner

and one of the legs
was broken off of the jukebox

and it was
kind of wobbling around.

And Roger looked over at me
and he said...

♪ Don't rock the jukebox

♪ I wanna hear some Jones

♪ Cos my heart ain't ready

♪ For the Rolling Stones

♪ I don't feel like rockin'

♪ Since my baby's gone

♪ So don't rock the jukebox

♪ Play me a country song

♪ Before you drop
that quarter...

My imagination
just wasn't big enough

to even comprehend back then

what kind of a superstar
he could turn into

and what a poet for the people
he could become.

He had great songs, but he also
had that amazing look

and that real shy streak
that is a part of who he is,

and it just worked.

And, no, I didn't have a vision

of how big he could be
or how long it could last.

[OVERTON]
When Alan walks in a room,

he doesn't even
have to open his mouth

and he can walk in a room
behind you,

he's a star,
you can almost feel that.

There's something about him,
and, to me,

I don't think
there was any doubt,

even though he'd been passed on
by label after label,

there was never a doubt to me
that he would get a record deal.

How big he was gonna be,
cos he was so country,

I didn't dream
he could be that big,

but his music took him there
and all the fans too.

Alan came up at the end of an
era when country music artists

still signed autographs,

stayed after their shows
and met their fans.

And he's always
gone out of his way

to still have
fan club activities,

or something where they can get a little bit close to him

or he can sit and talk to 'em.

He can be very shy, but if he gets in the right situation,

sitting and talking to people,
he opens up,

he tells you stories about
his family, about growing up,

about a lot of the background
of his songs.

And he's great at that,
cos it comes across so real.

He's so genuine.

So he's always courted and
understood that relationship

and I think because he grew up
a fan and he was such a fan

and his father was a fan
of country music

and talked about
country music stars,

I think he's always been aware
of that role he plays

and that country music artists
are closer to their fans

and do develop different
relationships with them.

I'm a fan from Singapore.
My name is Nashville.

I love you, Alan Jackson.
I love you.

All right. We enjoy the show.

Alan Jackson!

Hi, Alan Jackson! We love you!

We love you, Alan Jackson!

We love you, Alan Jackson!

Whoo!

[COBURN] Right from the beginning when I first met him,

there was
just something uniquely...

simple yet expressive
in the way he could write songs,

and so many of them
were personal,

but they had a sort of
a universal connection.

They may have had elements
and stories about himself,

but there'd be lines in there
that drew you in,

whether it was inNeon Rainbow

orHere In The Real World
or whatever.

You think about those songs
and you think about

how you found a piece of
yourself in what he was saying.

♪ Cos I'm a country boy
I got a four-wheel drive

♪ Climb in my bed
I'll take you for a ride

♪ Up city streets
Down country roads

♪ I can get you
where you need to go

♪ Cos I'm a country boy...

He was a good writer
from the start.

The first time
I ever sat down with him,

he played me a song called Home

that he had written
for his mom and dad

and I played him
a song called Dixie Boy

that the group Alabama
had recorded of mine.

I guess the reason he called me,

I think he perceived that I was
a hillbilly just like he was,

and turns out I am.

[ALAN] I was real lucky
to get hooked up

with some songwriters
early on

that were nice enough to give me a shot writing with them

and wrote a lot of traditional
country stuff like I do.

And that probably helped me
more than anything,

because I wrote
with these people

and it helped me
gain some experience there

and get a little exposure
round town.

Well, I brought some experience,

but he had such... I mean,
he had the in-born talent.

I'd seen the same thing
in Randy Travis

and I wrote a song or two
with Randy back in '81 or 2,

and then that kind of slipped
away, I didn't pursue that.

I thought,
"If this ever happens again,

I'm not gonna let go
if I can help it."

So all of sudden here's this guy
sitting across from me,

and I found out two things the first time we sat down together:

he could sing, I loved his
voice, and he was a good writer.

[WOMACK] Again,
I think with Alan's look

and the way he sings and
his stage show and everything,

it's all very true to who he is,

and so I think him
writing all of his songs,

it's really his story

and you feel like you're getting to know him, it's personal.

He's the best Alan Jackson
there will ever be, you know,

and he's not trying to be somebody else's idea of a star,

and so instead of following,
he's leading

and telling his team and fans and the industry and everything,

"This is the way I'm going
if you wanna follow me,"

and everybody did,

and I just think
that's his biggest strength.

Obviously he has written
a lot of his hits.

But he also recorded songs
by other songwriters,

cos he always said,
"The best song wins."

"That's what's best
for my career."

[MCBRIDE] There were some pretty big acts

that thought their songs
were better than anything

that the writers on Music Row
were writing,

and so they only recorded
their songs,

and their careers
were about this long.

George Strait and Alan
and Conway and Kenny Rogers,

those guys,
their careers, this long.

They chose the best songs
that fit them they could find.

The greatest songwriters
in the world are on Music Row,

just right down here,

and if you don't tap into that
if you're an artist,

then you're being
very shortsighted

just because
you don't have the publishing

or you didn't write it.

Make me believe you wrote it.
That's a real artist.

[OVERTON] Alan has had...

I think it's five or six
number ones by other artists.

That's unheard of.
That is unheard of.

When you think
of some of the greatest

writer artists in country music,

you talk about a Merle Haggard, someone like that,

I mean, there are not many
people that you can talk about

that are an icon and a superstar in country music

and wrote their songs

and on top of that
wrote hits for other people.

It's really
a tremendous accomplishment.

It's a huge deal to have your
song go number one as an artist,

but as a writer
it's that much more, you know,

it's that much more important
and that much more meaningful.

There's a lot of great songs
out there

and all you can do
is cross your fingers

and hope yours
gets to the top at some point,

and sometimes it does
and sometimes it doesn't,

and for him to be able to be

in that class of artists
that have done that as well,

I mean, that's just a testament

to him as an artist
and as a songwriter.

♪ It's a rainy day in June

♪ The sky is grey

♪ And I am blue

♪ Trying to make it without you

♪ On this rainy day in June...

[STEGALL]
What I found fascinating

was that there were things that he did that were imperfect

but were so relatable,

and I figured out
pretty early on in the process

that the way he wrote,

his style of writing,
did not need to be messed with.

So whereas a lot of guys that
I'd written with in the past,

I would always be making...

"Well, you should do this"
and "You should do that,"

and there was something

very unique and different
about Alan's songs.

In their imperfect way,
they were so relatable

and struck such a common chord.

It was like poetic conversation,
you know.

And it's not even poetry but
just great conversation.

He'll play us
an idea he has for a song

and he'll play us the chorus,

or he'll play us
the verse and chorus,

and it'll be, like, "Wait
a minute," you know. "That..."

"You can't say that,"

or "You can't rhyme it this way
with an imperfect rhyme,

or use the same word to rhyme
twice in the same chorus."

"You can't...
You can't do that."

But then Keith said,

"I've finally figured out,
I need to leave him alone."

Cos it's magic what he's doing.

It's not the way
most of us on Music Row do it,

but hopefully
I'm smart enough to know,

"You know what, there's magic
here, I'm gonna leave it alone."

[ALAN] Between albums I'm always
trying to listen for ideas,

you know, or see 'em and try
to write 'em down, song titles.

And sometimes I do,
I have a list,

and then when it gets serious
about writing,

I pick some of those and start
trying to make 'em work.

And then sometimes when I get
in a songwriting mode

and I get excited about it,
it makes me write more,

like some of those,
I wrote two or three

in a day or two, you know,
just real quick.

I mean, Alan's not
a very emphatic person,

but I wish I had been there
around him

to see the look on his face
when he got that line,

"Livin' on love,
buyin' on time".

I think... I just... I imagine
that even Alan Jackson

might have allowed him...

"Well, I'm gonna write something
about livin' on love."

"Livin' on love.
Buyin' on time."

♪ Livin' on love
Buyin' on time

♪ Without somebody
Nothin' ain't worth a dime

♪ Just like an old-fashioned
storybook rhyme

♪ Livin' on love...

I think that most country fans
think that all the artists

write their songs,
and that's just not true.

But for Alan,
he's had 35 number one songs.

He wrote 24 of 'em himself.

I mean, that's unheard of,

especially when you hear
how personal those songs are.

So when you look at the number
of number ones he's had,

and if you even go back
and look at his number twos

and top fives,
I mean, it's insane.

It's over 50 top ten hits
he's got.

It is comparable to Lennon
and McCartney and Haggard.

So, I mean, he is in a different
echelon of songwriters.

And then if you go back
and look at the ones

he just wrote by himself,
it's just...

Go look at how many songwriters are on a song these days.

There's four and five
songwriters.

This is a man
who just sat in a room

and wrote these songs
by himself,

many of which
he wrote multiples in a day,

and that just does not happen
any more.

The great thing
about Alan's music

is, you know, it's definitely,
it's about the common man

and the human condition.

And the way he writes songs,
it sounds simple,

and it is simple,
for him, and...

but I think the simplicity of it

lends itself
to the genius of it.

He's the singer/songwriter of
the neotraditionalist movement.

These were not just songs

that sonically hearken back
to things that had come before,

but they were songs about him
and his experiences

and the things that he observed, and he did that,

gosh, he's done that
for more than two decades now,

writing his own material
and causing you to care

about the people in his life
that you'd never met before

until he brought 'em up
in verse and melody and rhyme.

[DEAL] Occasionally
we would go to the lake

and ski
and do that kind of stuff,

and I remember his notebook

being on the table
there in the kitchen,

that he wrote songs
and stuff in.

And I probably shouldn't
tell his, but I snooped.

I opened it up
and started looking through

at some of the songs
he was writing and working on,

and I see where the ideas
for some of his songs started.

So he was actively writing,

and I think maybe
in the beginning

maybe his thinking was,

"This is how I'm gonna make it, is songwriting."

And I always thought,
no, your singing,

your voice
is what's gonna make it.

♪ Remember when

♪ I was young and so were you

♪ And time stood still

♪ And love was all we knew

♪ You were the first
So was I

♪ We made love
and then you cried

♪ Remember when...

[WOMAN] His singing was just so beautiful, and he...

I have more respect for him now
than I could have imagined,

just by how
unbelievably talented he is.

He's such...

I feel like
I learned more about singing

in those five months
working with him

than I have in I don't know how
many years, you know, since...

I compared working on this like I felt when I was a teenager

and really getting in the music

and how that's all
you thought about.

And watching him
out there singing.

If I made a suggestion, just,
"So what do you mean by that?"

And then if I'd phrase it
a different way in there,

he just goes bam
and nailed it, you know?

It wasn't much, I don't wanna make it sound like I said much,

because he's just...
he's incredibly gifted.

It blew my mind hearing that
voice come through the speakers.

We were yelling at the speakers,
bending down like this.

"Oh, my goodness."

He was just... He was
incredible. He was incredible.

It was a magical time for me
to hear him sing.

♪ Remember when

[WOMAN] OK, roll to you.

[MAN] Here we go. Stand by.

Thanks, Steve.
Breaking news tonight.

I'm here in Nashville with
country superstar Alan Jackson

on the set
of his new music video

for his hit song Good Time...

The music video
was a fairly new concept.

MTV didn't get started
until early '80s.

And Alan embraced the format
really quickly

and he had very,
very strong opinions

about what he wanted to do

and the storyline
he wanted to follow.

And he followed who were
the right directors out there,

and usually he came to us
with very firm ideas on

"This is what I wanna do,
this is who I wanna hire,

this is what I want it
to look like."

And, you know, it worked
very, very well for him.

And then we got
to the point of Chattahoochee,

and that's where
he really shined

because he knew
exactly what he wanted to do,

and all you had to do
was see him

in those
incredibly torn-up jeans

out there on that water-ski
and you were in.

♪ Well, way down yonder
on the Chattahoochee

♪ It gets hotter
than a hoochie coochie...

[DUNGAN] That video
couldn't be played enough.

People couldn't
get enough of it.

And the aerial shots
and everything,

those were things
that didn't really happen

in country music videos
up to that point.

It showed him in a way that was
pretty defining for that career

and, you know, really just
took him into the stratosphere.

[MAN] He was a great songwriter,
good singer,

he had the look,
and I hate to bring that up,

but it's like when videos
became popular,

lots of really good singers
went away

because they didn't have
the look.

Some of those guys who are great traditional country singers,

you know,
once they were in a video...

Video killed some of
those people, really did.

♪ Well, we fogged up the windows in my old Chevy

♪ I was willing
but she wasn't ready...

No one wanted to put that out
but Alan.

Not the label, not the managers,
no, they were just, you know...

Up till then a lot of his songs had been about love,

and, you know,
there was mystery about Alan,

he was very quiet,

and just the photos
that were out there

in the media of him and stuff,

and Chattahoochee was just

a wide-open, have fun
kind of song.

And I don't think anybody
really wanted that,

but he really believed in it.

And then he came up
with the idea

of the water-skiing
with his boots on video,

and everybody was, like, "Oh,
my gosh. What are we doing?"

"This guy was taking off.
Are we gonna mess up?"

And Alan said, "No, man.
This is gonna work."

The single record
of the year is...

Chattahoocheeby Alan Jackson.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

Chattahoocheeis
my biggest record.

I thank so many people
for making it a success.

Thank y'all so much.

[DUBOIS] He just had a way
to speak to people,

just to the general audience.

If you take a song
like Chattahoochee,

it spoke to that teenage
experience

of experimenting with alcohol,
cars and women.

And he was also
smart enough as an artist

to recognise a great song
that he didn't write too,

and that was a big part
of his career.

[COBURN] He had a real respect
for other writers,

and they knew it, and people I think respected him

for the fact
that he was open to it,

it wasn't an impossibility
to get there,

and the outside songs he chose,

whether it was from Tom T. Hall
or anybody else,

they were always
really interesting songs.

♪ Pour me something
tall and strong

♪ Make it a hurricane
before I go insane

♪ It's only half past twelve
but I don't care

♪ It's five o'clock somewhere...

[STEGALL] Alan called me out to his house one afternoon.

He said, "I've found this song,
I want you to listen to

and see what you think
about it."

So he played it for me,

and it didn't sound anything
like an Alan Jackson record.

It was...

It was very much Jimmy Buffett
the way the demo was produced.

So we went to Key West
to work with Buffett,

to get Buffett's part on there,

and when we started the track,
Buffett said,

"Hey, Alan,
it's like you're trying to steal

some of my sounds."

And so we took a break
and Alan goes,

"You need to take
that track back

and figure out
how to make it sound

like an Alan Jackson record."

♪ Say, pour me something
tall and strong

♪ Make it a hurricane
before I go insane...

Let me solo the electric guitar
here so you can hear...

This is the signature instrument
that changed everything.

[ELECTRIC GUITAR RIFF]

And so there you have
a lot of the twangy twangy

that's on most of
Alan Jackson's records,

and some of those
key instruments like that

are what put the frame together
around that to go,

"Hey,
it's an Alan Jackson record."

♪ I can't help but wonder

♪ What would Jimmy Buffett do?

Funny you should ask, Alan.

♪ I'd say pour me something
tall and strong...

[OVERTON] So we listened to it
and I said,

"Wow. This is fantastic, man.
This came out great."

He said, "Who were the writers?"

And I told him Don Rollins
and Jim Brown,

and he said, "I don't think
I've heard of them before."

I said, "Alan, this is gonna be
their first cut."

And he sat there
and kind of grinned a little bit

and he said, "Well, you know,
that's good for them, man."

"Their first cut is gonna be
on my greatest hits record

which should sell a lot,

and they're guaranteed a single and it should do well.

I mean, the song's a smash."

He said, "I'm really happy for 'em. Tell 'em I'm really happy."

"And tell 'em thank you for letting me have that song."

And those two songwriters,
they'd never had a cut before,

they were out of their minds,
like, "Oh, my God!"

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

Oh, Lord help us.

It's really hard to say
Alan Jackson is one thing.

While he's always been
a very stable, very real artist

in what he's saying
and his perspective,

he covers a lot of ground
and he is...

If you ask him to describe
exactly what his lane is...

There's a little speech he does
in his shows every night.

He's, like, country music's
about livin' and dyin'

and drinkin' and partyin'
and, you know,

breakups
and all of those things,

and that's what his career
has been.

They're not one specific thing.

Sometimes he gets
tied too much to

Where Were You
When The World Stopped Turning

or Remember Whenor...

but he's not just that,
he's really all of those things.

♪ Blessed assurance
Jesus is mine

♪ O what a foretaste
of glory divine

♪ Heir of salvation
Purchase of God

♪ Born of his spirit
Washed in his blood...

[ALAN] We went
to the First Baptist Church,

which was downtown.

It was a small church
when I was very young.

Probably when I was
almost a teenager,

they built a new sanctuary
next door,

so the old one
still remains there.

But the original one I went to

was a small,
really pretty little church.

[WOMAN] Church was
very important in our family.

We started off at my husband's
First Baptist Church

when I married him,

but I didn't belong to a church,

because I grew up
in a country church

and never was
a part of the church

like I wanted my children to be.

And I made a point
that they were always

in the Sunday school
and in the choir.

They started when they were
just real, real young.

It was just
a pretty standard Southern

kind of easygoing church

and you were real reverent
and quiet in there.

Nobody said anything and they
stood up and sang the hymns.

I enjoyed the traditional gospel hymns and music

that I grew up
in the church listening to

I guess because anytime
you're familiar with a song,

you automatically feel
you have a connection,

whether it brings back
a memory or something.

Of course, I guess
you know we're here

singing some gospel songs.

My mama's been wearing me out
for ten years

to do this gospel album.

[RUTH] I didn't know
that he was going to do it.

He had promised me that he would make me one sometime,

but I had no idea
that he was making it

until we were up here
just before Christmas.

[ALAN] We just put the CD on
and let it play.

We were all in there opening
presents for our family.

And so I just put that on
and said, "Here's your present."

Come out and handed her
a copy of the CD case.

So we sat there
and listened to it.

And I sat there and cried.

[DENISE] She just wept.

She sat at our bar
in our kitchen

and every song just kept saying
over and over again,

"This is the best gift
you could have ever given me."

♪ Saviour all the day long

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

[ALAN] I didn't sit down

and try to write something
for any reason.

It just kind of happened
that way.

And I think most of the input
we've had from people,

just fans or people
that weren't necessarily

my fan or a country music fan,

they just heard the song,
you know,

we had a lot of comments
from people

outside of the normal
country music listener,

and people that were directly
involved in the tragedy.

I even met one guy
outside of New York

that was part
of the Port Authority police

and was one of the guys that was
trapped inside of the tower

for 24 hours or longer,

and he was one of the few
that survived.

And he still couldn't walk.
He was in a wheelchair.

But he came up
to one of my shows

and came backstage and said hi

and he told me how he had been
in bed for, you know, weeks,

or it may have been months,
I don't remember now,

after the 11th, recovering,

and he just couldn't
deal with it at all

and that this song had
really meant so much to him,

and that made me feel like it
was all worthwhile.

And he brought me
a piece of the tower

that was cut
out of a steel beam,

and he and a group
of his other officers,

and a lot of his coworkers died,
a lot of 'em were fans of mine,

and so, anyway, they all made
this piece of steel

and cut a cross in it,

and gave it to me
from the tower,

and that's a real special
piece of history

that I have I keep at home now
in a nice place.

♪ I remember this
from when I was young

♪ Faith, hope and love are some good things he gave us

♪ The greatest is love...

[STEGALL] When he played
Where Were You for me on the bus

I went, "Oh, my."

And he said,

"I don't want people
to take this the wrong way

that I'm trying to take
some kind of advantage

of this tragedy."

I said, "Man, the world
needs to hear this song."

So we went in
and we recorded that song,

and it was...
the moment is indescribable,

to go back and think about it.

The oxygen was sucked out
of the room, it was so powerful.

And it was a milestone
in his career,

it was a milestone as a writer,

it was a milestone
as a human being.

♪ Did you open your eyes
and hope it never happened

♪ Close your eyes
and not go to sleep...

[COOPER] Where Were You is just an essentially honest response,

an admission by somebody
who just doesn't know

what the hell is happening
in the world.

It was taken as a song
of patriotism in some ways

and it brought people together,

but it wasn't flag waving.

It was just, like,
"Let's talk to each other

about this thing
that has happened

that has changed all of us
at our core."

♪ I'm just a singer
of simple songs

♪ I'm not a real political man

♪ I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you

♪ The difference
in Iraq and Iran...

[DUNGAN] And then,
of course, he performed it

on the CMA Awards,

and it was the first time
I'd heard it,

and I sat in the fifth row
and was just dumbfounded

by what this man was saying
and the way he was saying it,

and, again, he just did
what Alan's always done

and he spoke
the honest, everyman's truth.

You know, "I watch CNN."

"I don't really know
the difference

between Iraq and Iran."

I mean, I promise you,

most people that heard that
for the first time said,

"Well, that's pretty much me."

And that's what Alan's
always represented,

is the every guy out there
that can't express himself.

That's what
the great musicians do

is they express
our emotions for us

because we just
don't have the skills

and we don't know how to do it.

If you go above that certain
baseline amount of humanity,

you run the risk of completely
losing the audience,

but Alan was
right in the pocket.

He was one of us,
he was one of them,

he was one of everyone.

♪ Where were you
when the world stopped turning

♪ On that September

♪ Day

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

How y'all doin' tonight?
Thank you very much.

[♪ MUSIC: "Where I Come From"]

♪ I was rollin' wheels
and shiftin' gears

♪ Around that Jersey Turnpike

♪ When Barney stopped me
with his gun

♪ Ten minutes after midnight

♪ Said, son, you broke the limit Had a rusty ol' truck

♪ I don't know
about that accent, son

♪ Just where did you come from?

♪ I said where I come from
It's cornbread and chicken

♪ Where I come from
A lot of front porch dickin'

♪ Where I come from...

[OVERTON] His music
is not gonna cross over

onto the pop charts
and pop radio

or any other kind of radio.

But to have sold
the amount of albums he has,

the amount of airplay
that he has

and all the awards he gets
from ASCAP,

for all the performances
and things like that,

it's truly phenomenal

when you sit back and look
at what he has accomplished.

It really, really is,
and, again, by doing it his way,

with traditional country music,

or, as he says,
good old country music.

It seems even more monumental
now in this age that we live in,

looking back on it,

with what's happened
in the music industry.

But it was happening so fast

that it was mind-boggling.

And it was so difficult to go,
"This is really going on."

And it just kept going.

♪ Where I come from...

[MABE] I think
there will never be an artist

that sells the number of records that Alan did.

He'll be the last of a breed.

60 million albums worldwide.

And this is a guy
that you would think

would only stay here in
the United States, but go look.

He has sellouts in Brazil
and Australia and Norway.

This is a global superstar,

from a guy that just came
from a really small hometown

in Newnan, Georgia,
that grew up in a toolshed.

[DUNGAN] There was next to no international reach in the '90s,

and, what do we have, 250
million people living in the US?

You know, you do the math
and you can tell

Alan Jackson made his dent on the public psyche, you know.

It's pretty hard to find someone
that does not own

some kind of Alan Jackson music in one shape or another.

Those numbers are off the chart,
and they all came from him.

All these other things are nice,

all these awards
and these number one songs.

But he's still just like he was when he left home.

He hasn't changed
and it hasn't affected his...

the way he thinks
about his family.

He still calls, wherever he is,
once a week...

and keeps in touch with us and
anything that he can do for us,

we don't have to ask,
he'll do it.

He just...
I'm proud of that part.

And even if he lost
all his other,

he'd still come back home.

♪ Where I come from

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

Whoo!

It's been a crazy run.

I've had more hits than
I can even remember now,

and sold more records
than I could ever imagine,

and I always try
to thank people like y'all

who've supported my music
all these years. God bless you.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

Come to the shows and buy
the records. Thank you so much.

I've got to do so many things.

I can't even remember
all the crazy things.

I just came
from that little town,

working man
and never been anywhere.

Next thing I know,
I've played for four presidents

and travelled all over the world

and I even got to jump a Bigfoot
monster truck, Bigfoot,

over six cars
one time in a video,

so I've done
a little of everything.

Thank y'all
for being here tonight.

That's what
I've been trying to do

since I moved to Nashville
years ago,

is to make the kind
of country music

that I liked and I thought
other people did,

and songs about life and love
and heartache and drinkin'

and dyin' and cryin'
and havin' a good time,

you know, all the things
that go with life sometimes.

So that's the kind of music

I've been writing
and recording for years

and that's what we're gonna do
for you tonight

and I hope I play one you like.

[♪ MUSIC: "Angels And Alcohol"]

♪ You can't mix angels

♪ And alcohol...

[MCBRIDE]
To be associated with him,

just the trickle-down
from his success,

was something I could never
have even dreamed of.

Just kind of standing there
in the shadow,

which is where I wanted to be.

[DEAL] He did things that I saw
over the course of his career

that made me wanna do better,

and he became a big fish

in an ocean full of singers
and songwriters.

And because of me
having an opportunity

to spend a small amount
of my life with him,

I gained some respect
here locally as a musician

and I got to become a big fish
in a small pond.

And I appreciate
the opportunity that I've had

to be a part
of the life of a man

that to me has become
a legend in country music.

♪ Can't blend whisky

♪ With a good woman's love...

[UNDERWOOD] I feel every
generation of country music

looks at the generation
that they grew up listening to

as just the best
of all time, right?

I know Alan had, you know,
George and Hank and...

I know he just had that group of
artists that he was just like,

"Oh, my gosh,
this is what I'm influenced by."

"I'm gonna take this.
I'm gonna make it my own."

And my generation does the same,
and it's Alan, it is Alan,

it is Garth, it is Reba,
it is Tim McGraw.

It's that '90s country
awesomeness that I grew up with,

and so we take that
and we make it into our own.

We're all just, you know, kind
of in the long line of legacy

that country music has left
and is continuing to leave.

[MCCALL] When people look back

at the '90s, 2000s
of country music,

Alan Jackson will be one of
those figures that stands out

in the way that we now look
at Hank Williams,

we now look at Johnny Cash
or Willie Nelson,

George Jones and then
some of those heroes of his,

Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn,
the artists that will stand

as the major artists
of the country music genre.

I think Alan will be
at the top of that heap.

I think that as people look back

over the history
of country music

and look back
over Alan's career,

I think they'll think of him
as being true to himself.

The fact that he wrote almost
all of his number one hits.

The fact that they were true
and personal stories to him.

He's one of the greatest artists

we've ever had the pleasure
of having in this business,

and I think that people when
they think of country music,

they'll think of Alan Jackson.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

Thank you so much.

Oh, thank you.

[MAN]
Here to induct Alan Jackson

as a member of
the Country Music Hall of Fame

is Loretta Lynn.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

This is the first time I've been
out of the house, Alan.

You're the only thing that
would have brought me here.

[LAUGHTER]

I love you, honey,
and I wanna say congratulations

and I am so proud of you.

And I'm glad
that you're being...

Hey, you should be here.

[LAUGHTER]

Bless you. God bless you.

I love you, baby.

OK, I don't know how to do it.

You don't put on
many necklaces, huh?

I haven't before.

Me and Alan here,
we're crippled.

- Here you go.
- [ALAN] Is that right?

[WOMAN] Fine.

Country Music
Hall of Famer, huh?

Yeah.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

Loretta Lynn said
I should be in here.

[LAUGHTER]

That's...

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

That's all
I needed to hear, so...

[APPLAUSE]

You know, of course,
I have to thank my family.

Denise and the girls
have just been with me

every step of the way here

and have inspired me
and supported me

and told me
when I was doing stupid things

and have kept me in line,

and I just have been so blessed.

And I know
when I hear Kyle up here

saying all these
wonderful things about me

and how great I am
and all this stuff

and, you know,
I just don't take that serious.

I mean, I just...
I really don't. I don't...

I just write these songs,

and I don't think about it much,
I just do it,

and I don't try
to figure out anything

or make some
preachy statement about it.

I just write and sing
from my heart

and I just don't...

What I'm trying to say is

I just don't put myself
up on this pedestal.

Like I wrote in that song, I'm
just a singer of simple songs.

That's all I am.
That's all I am.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

So, all that said,
I'm just gonna wrap it up here,

I know everybody's tired,

and just say
how much I appreciate the CMA

for including me in this,
in the Hall of Fame,

and I just love
real country music

and there's still
a lot of people out there,

young and old, wanna hear
what I call real country music.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

So I'm very proud and I don't
feel like I really belong here,

but I'm just so humbled by it

and just will just continue

to try to make country music
as long as I can,

and just thank everybody
once again,

and thank God for all that
he's given me and my family

and blessed us so much.

[APPLAUSE]

I think that's all
I'm gonna say.

[APPLAUSE]

[STEGALL] The thing that can be
learned from Alan

is Alan was able to take from
the icons that preceded him,

whether it was Hank Williams
or George Jones

or Merle Haggard or Vern Gosdin or Conway Twitty,

all these people
that were really iconic.

He was able to take
and study and learn,

and I hope the generation
that follows this

will be able to look
at his body of work

and what he has represented,

and learn from it
and grow from it

and gather what they can

from somebody who has done it
the right way, you know.

I don't think he'll ever change.
He's still...

I had the opportunity to talk
to him three or four weeks ago,

and it wasn't much different
from 25 years ago.

He's still an amazing
quiet, polite, you know, guy

and unique and one of a kind.

Amazing.

I'm so proud
to have played a little part

in an amazing career
that affected so many lives.

He is truly an American treasure

and I'm really,
really happy for him.

We're not finished
with our story yet,

and I think that we have
a lot left to go with Alan.

In much the same way
that Cash had a lot to go

from this point on
in his career, or Haggard,

so does Alan.

We have a lot
of territory left to go,

and he's gonna define
those moments,

but I think 50 years from now,

when there's the hundredth
anniversary of the CMA Awards,

they're gonna be singing
Alan Jackson songs.

[GENE] Well, as proud
as a father could be.

He couldn't have done any better as far as I'm concerned.

I'd still be proud of him if he
was down there washing dishes.

He's still my son,
no matter what.

But I'm real proud for him,

that he's gone this far
in the music business

and done so well.

I know that when Alan came along

that people like George Jones
and Merle Haggard

looked to him
as the next in their line.

Jones loved him, just loved him.

And Haggard saw someone who,
as he had done,

was writing his own truth
from his own perspective

and wrapping it
in fiddle and steel.

And I think that history
will find Alan mentioned

along with people like that.

He's gonna be
just like his heroes.

I really do appreciate you
coming out.

I'd do anything for you.

I can't believe
you came out here.

You know why
I'd do anything for you?

I don't know why.

Because you're the only one
in country music today

that has kept it country.

[CHEERING]

I love you.

[♪ MUSIC:
"Small Town Southern Man"]

♪ Born the middle son
of a farmer

♪ And a small town Southern man

♪ Like his daddy's daddy
before him

♪ Brought up workin' on the land

♪ Fell in love
with a small town woman

♪ And they married up
and settled down

♪ Natural way of life
if you're lucky

♪ For a small town Southern man

♪ First there came
four pretty daughters

♪ For this small town
Southern man

♪ Then a few years later
came another

♪ A boy, he wasn't planned

♪ Seven people
living all together

♪ In a house
built with his own hands

♪ Little words with love
and understanding

♪ From a small town Southern man