To have Alan Jackson—3-time CMA Entertainer of the Year winner, and a man that has sold more than 60 million records worldwide—release a straightforward, traditional bluegrass album with no caveats, no tangents, simply straight ahead acoustic instrumentation in a traditional style, is a feat and a victory all on its own. And the music ain’t too bad either.
With 34 CMA Awards, over 20 Grammys, and and some 80 million records sold between the two, they both have seen their share of overwhelming commercial success, public notoriety, and peer recognition. But over the last few years the writing has been on the wall that their time has come, and their days of widespread radio play and big awards are over. And so what did these two men do?
Ahead of his performance at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Baltimore, Alan Jackson had some discouraging words about the current state of country music in an interview with the Baltimore Sun. Jackson’s last album, 2012’s Thirty Miles West sold moderately well, but did not produce the type of radio hits Jackson enjoyed earlier in his career.