Alan Jackson

Making music is still what keeps a fire going on in me.

The older you are, I think you realize what you enjoy and what you don't need, ...
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A country song is a song about life.

Oklahoma's always been good to me.

I think every album you have, especially if it's done well, you feel like you're competing ...
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A country song is a song about life.

Growing up in Georgia, I used to think people up north or out west were so different. They're really not. They're just regular people who live in small towns. They grow up and try to raise families and have a job and go to church and play softball. It's that way everywhere.

For some reason I've been labeled that and it's fine, but there are a lot of other artists that sing real traditional stuff, so I don't know why they picked me. That's what I've always done.

Hee Haw was probably my biggest exposure to live music at a young age, because there wasn't any live music around my town and no one in my family played instruments.

He's written some great songs. I thought that 'Blues Man' was a perfect song for me to do as a tribute.

I could have done a hundred songs, really. It was hard to narrow them down, because I tried to pick songs for the most part that actually did have some effect on me or influenced me in the past.

I grew up with nothing, so whenever I got to where I could have something I felt like I needed to have everything I couldn't have when I was young.

I didn't realize until I was older what a huge music fan my daddy really was, and actually that my grandma played banjo at one time, and I didn't even know that until a year or two ago.

I mean, my voice has gotten a little deeper sounding as I've gotten older, I think. I noticed that.

I mean, I am driven and laid-back at the same time.

I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't, they want that positive, uptempo thing.

I think every album you have, especially if it's done well, you feel like you're competing with yourself.

I really was a fan of his and always have been - his writing especially, you know? I think people a lot of times overlook that part, because he kind of got into that party character so heavy.

If anything good came out of 9/11, to me, was that people were so cynical about the world - all you hear about on the news is all the bad stuff everyday, but what was refreshing to me was after that, you saw how many good people there are out there. For every one bad one, there's a thousand good ones.

If you can last until you're 40 years old, hopefully you'll be mature enough to figure out the rest of the years.

I think if you retire from touring then people think you are retired.

I'm usually just enjoying life.

I've always wanted to make a bluegrass album.

Making music is still what keeps a fire going on in me.

Oklahoma's always been good to me.

Probably some of the songs I never even really listened to the lyrics. Half of them I'd hear off the radio and was probably singing the wrong words and didn't even know it.

The music business doesn't take up that much of my time. I probably should put a little more energy into it.

The older you are, I think you realize what you enjoy and what you don't need, what wears you out and what's important.

What I enjoy doing more than anything is, I have my little antique car collection, and when the weather is pretty I like to get out one of my old cars. I have a little route I run down in the country, down Nachez Trace Parkway. The loop down through there is just really relaxing, not much traffic.

You have to be tough-skinned and willing to accept criticism, and at the same time, just try to do music that you like and you are proud of and not just whatever you think it's going to take to get you on the radio.

You just write about things that happen.