On This Day in 2008, Alan Jackson Released the Highly Personal Album That Took Him Back to His Country Roots

On this day (March 4) in 2008, Alan Jackson released Good Time. Later that month, it would debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums charts. It also produced three chart-topping hits. More importantly, the album marked a return to form for Jackson. His previous release saw him moving away from neotraditional to a more adult contemporary sound. Good Time proved that he could still make the music that fans had fallen in love with over the years.

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After more than a decade of releasing traditional-leaning country music, Jackson tried something different in 2006 with Like Red on a Rose. While it still contained his Georgia twang, the album leaned more toward easy listening than the country music fans had come to expect from him. Additionally, it was his first release not produced by Keith Stegall. Instead, Alison Krauss produced the album. Furthermore, Jackson only wrote one song on Like Red on a Rose.

[RELATED: On This Day in 2002, Alan Jackson Was at No. 1 With the Album That Produced Two of the Most Powerful Songs in His Discography]

It seems Jackson wanted to do the exact opposite when going into Good Time. He wrote every song on the album with no co-writers. Stegal returned as producer and, together, they created a 17-track collection with multiple variations on traditional-leaning country music. In short, it was a return to form for one of the genre’s brightest stars.

Alan Jackson Got Personal on Good Time

Alan Jackson including details of his life in his songwriting is nothing new. For instance, he got incredibly personal on songs like “Remember When,” “I’d Love You All Over Again,” and “Drive (For Daddy Gene).” He did the same on several songs from Good Time. For the song’s lead single, “Small Town Southern Man,” he found inspiration in the hard-working men in his family.

“I didn’t sit down to write a song about my family and my daddy and granddaddy and all that stuff,” Jackson said. “But I did pull from all that. A lot of those lyrics are factual,” he added.

Jackson recalled that the song’s title came to him out of the blue, and he knew he had to write it. “I started pulling from real things that I knew about and embellished them a little bit, I guess. But that gives it a little honesty,” he explained.

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