ALAN JACKSON: Life’s Work on the Neon Rainbow

“Our introduction came through a mutual friend who was working for me,” Stegall remembers. “He had been talking to Alan, he introduced us, and the relationship began to grow out of that. We would hang out at Glen’s publishing company a lot. I was doing a lot of writing…would bring in demos, and Alan would always ask, ‘How did you get that sound?’ and ‘When are you going to cut some sides on me?’ After we started writing together, the publishing company gave us a little budget, and we cut four or five things. The demos we cut resulted in a record deal, and two of the songs became singles from the first album: ‘Wanted’ and ‘Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow.’”  (In fact, both of the co-writes hit Billboard’s Top 5, as did the debut album’s title track, “Here in the Real World,” while “I’d Love You All Over Again” became his first No. 1.)

“That’s really where it all started. We became good friends through this whole process, and it continued on-like a couple of old fishing buddies.”

As a songwriter, Alan Jackson’s neither preoccupied with craft nor especially articulate about his process-not surprising for a writer who almost backed into the job.  Yet he’s not unreflective, and though he tends to put things in almost painfully plain terms, there’s clearly a sharp mind and a strong sense of empathy at work in his songwriting.

“I wasn’t really a music person growing up,” he notes. “I mean, I didn’t study at it. I  didn’t buy records. I was like most people, I guess. I thought when you heard someone sing a song, it was theirs. I got to be a big fan of Hank Williams, and I saw some movies about him and learned more about his music. That was probably the first country songwriter that I thought about, but he was an artist, too. So both things were kind of together in my mind. I loved Vern Gosdin and the stuff that he wrote, John Conlee and, of course, Merle Haggard. But as far as just songwriters, I didn’t know too many who weren’t artists.”

Coming to Nashville, signing a songwriting deal and easing his way into the community changed that. “After moving here you run across people like Bob McDill-I love his writing. He’s one that’s just written so many great songs, and people hardly know who he is. I was singing his songs, and I didn’t, but once I got here I found out. I’d love to do a whole album of Bob McDill songs.”

At the same time as his appreciation for great writers was deepening, he was learning to co-write-though as both he and Stegall point out, the process wasn’t always easy, and it didn’t always line up with his instincts. “Co-writing-the typical Nashville network thing of writing with people in town-that was kind of new to him,” Stegall says. “We hooked up and wrote some things with Roger Murrah, but the one thing that I saw pretty early on is that he had his own stylistic thing, and I felt like it would be a huge mistake to force him into the Nashville way. He had a real honest imperfection in the song. It wasn’t crafted and cranked out in the Nashville way, and there was something in it that communicated, that connected with everybody. So my focus as a co-writer was to stay out of his way.”

“It was intimidating sometimes,” Jackson notes. “I’m a little backward about people I don’t know-I’m better now, but I was back then-and it was tough to go into a room with somebody you don’t know and start writing from your heart.

“I’ve never really looked at people’s songs or really studied. All I’ve known is what was in my head from hearing other songs. I go back now and hear some stuff from a long time ago, and I don’t know that I’d do it any differently. Whether I’m writing by myself or with someone else, I just go with whatever feels right. I’ve never been real strict about my rhymes or patterns. Someone told me once that I rhymed ‘log’ with ‘home,’ and all I could say was, ‘It felt right to me.’

“Tim DuBois at Arista signed me to my record deal, and he was a songwriter. He saw that there was something there…that was my own style of songwriting. So in the long run, the songwriting probably helped me get there and sustained me.”