Homebody Country Star Alan Jackson Works Hard To Fit In As Much Family Time As Possible
Country singer Alan Jackson is flying high. With four studio albums selling between 4 million and 6 million copies each and concert tours that draw capacity crowds, Jackson has become one of country music’s biggest stars. He lives on a sprawling estate outside of Nashville with his wife and two daughters, ages 2 and 6, where he indulges in his many hobbies, including collecting classic cars and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
“I have all kinds of hobbies,” Jackson says. “I’ve taken up flying lately. I’ve got a little single engine thing I’m going land on a grass strip at my farm. I have (another) plane that I fly in to work. I don’t fly it though,” he says with a laugh. “It’s a Lear Jet.”
Jackson recently purchased the jet to travel between concert dates. Whenever his tour itinerary allows, he leaves his home in the afternoon and returns that same night so he can spend more time with his family.
“I’m pretty much still a homebody type of guy,” he says. “It’s still hard to be away from my family, and I do miss those special occasions. If I’m playing near home, they’ll come out to see me, but my children have never traveled with me out on the road. It’s not a good environment for children. There’s no set routine. My little girls are already going to preschool, and they’re on a schedule, so it’s best to keep them off the road and disrupt their schedule as little as possible. My wife and I think that’s a good way to do it.”
When he’s taking a break from touring and spending time around Nashville, the celebrity treatment Jackson receives in public still puzzles him.
“I’ve never quite understood that,” he says. “People for some reason, because I’m a celebrity, want to put (me) on a pedestal. I hope it doesn’t change things or upset my children. That’s important to me.”
Until recently, there was one aspect of his career that bothered Jackson to no end. It was the “country hunk” label he acquired in the media and the sex-symbol treatment that came with it. But things are different these days.
“It seems as far as the media goes, the subjects have changed,” he observes. “It’s not like it used to be. The interviews with the press are now more about the music and the live show and the art part of it. I’m glad to see that come around.”
Jackson acknowledges that part of the trouble he’s had coping with the spotlight is due in part to his personality.
“I’ve never been comfortable in front of a lot of people,” he admits. “And what’s weird is that I ended up in a business where I’m in front of zillions of people all the time. I guess if I wanted my career to be just about making and playing music, I would have probably ended up playing in some little coffee shop somewhere for the rest of my life (he laughs). But I wanted to try and make a living at it.”
Earlier this year, when he was working on the project that would become his latest album “Alan Jackson: The Greatest Hits Collection,” the experience left him pondering his achievements.
“It seemed strange putting together a greatest-hits package,” Jackson says. “As far as the greatest hits album goes,the songs have been there for years. Some of them I wrote five years ago. I sing them every night, just for the crowd. When I listen to the whole thing, I can’t believe those are songs that I’ve had hit records with. It’s amazing to me how much those songs have affected my life and other people’s lives.”
The singer is well aware of an underlying irony to his fame. After spending years striving to break into country music (he once pawned his possessions and lived in a trailer to write songs), now that he’s made it, there times when he longs to return to the simpler days when he was an auto mechanic.
“This ain’t a proper job,” Jackson says. “It doesn’t feel like work. (But) I think I have finally found a sense of balance in my life now. It’s a lot different from the life I had when I grew up in a little town. I never had had a lot of friends, I mean close friends who I hung out with. It’s just been pretty much my wife and I. I have children now, so I’m with my family a lot more.”
With his platinum and gold records and numerous awards from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association, Jackson has accumulated enough prizes to fill a trophy room. And all the recognition has helped Jackson realize that he doesn’t have to prove anything to the country music industry anymore.
“As far as my goals in the music business,” he says, “there’s not a lot of things left for me to do. As far as awards, there’s not a lot left for me to do. The only thing left to do is to try to keep creating the music. That’s where it all started anyway. That’s the most fun part of it to me now. I get tired of all the other stuff. Maybe I’m going to go into the acting business,” he says with a laugh.
Jackson recently did just that with a role on an upcoming episode of “Home Improvement”.
“The ‘Home Improvement’ role was just something that came up,” he cautions. “They wanted me on the show, and I felt like it was a show that my audience watched. (But) I usually don’t do a lot of television.”