alan jackson is doing the circuit, promoting the bluegrass album, even showing up on npr and so on. well, what you should understand is that he's a figure comparable to, say, johnny cash or merle haggard. this will be slowly dawning on people, and eventually he'll mutate into a kennedy-center honoree etc. he's got a quarter century of pure country, as a writer and recording artist. look every album cut isn't amazing; neither was it for johnny. but there are at least a couple of dozen songs that could reasonably be regarded as classics, and many other great moments. it's definitely one of the strongest songwriting portfolios in the history of the form. as a singer, he's unassuming, but he sneaks up on you in a big way. maybe he's always a quarter-tone sharp or something? one of these people who makes wrong sound right, another thing we could say about cash, for example.
also the period of, say, 1988 to 1995 might be my favorite era of country music, a golden age comparable to the late 60s. jackson was one of its great spearheads, along with people like patty loveless and the now-so-sad randy travis.
the bluegrass album is good, and unusually for this sort of project, consists mostly of originals. i'd particularly draw your attention to "blacktop", which is a sly reversal of rural romanticism from inside ("i was glad to see the blacktop/when they laid it down in '65/i was glad to see the blacktop/no more dust in my eyes"). he covers one of my favorite songs ever: "wild and blue". also the album features the great mandolin virtuoso adam steffey (i'm trying to learn the mandolin). jackson's baritone makes everything country again, though. well, that baritone, for me, just is the sound of country over the last quarter century. actually i think he should have hired one of the great bluegrass high tenors - jamie dailey or russell moore, say - to sing harmonies throughout, and de-emphasized his own voice a bit (that would be in keeping with the ensemble ethos of bluegrass).
(for mw)
