Alan Jackson photo courtesy of SonyBMG Nashville.

"Good Time" is a honky-tonk jam that kicks off Alan Jackson's new Arista Nashville album for a tremendously easygoing yet edgy five minutes-plus. It's a Friday night country tune sung by a dog-tired guy who has worked straight through the week yet doesn't want to sleep—not now; not when "all the conditions are right," as Alan sings, for something sweeter. The guy has cashed his check, cleaned his truck, picked up his girl across town, and as the sun goes down, he's heading out for some fun—some beer, some Bocephus, some relief.

Alan's new collection—for which he wrote all seventeen songs—is named Good Time as well. Loose, inventive, traditional, high-spirited, sad, intense, laid-back, clear as a bell, the album is a great Alan Jackson hang. "I guess I felt like I needed something that wasn't entirely a big, heavy album," says Alan, whose last release, 2006's profoundly acclaimed Like Red on a Rose, was an adventurous exploration of country-soul with producer Alison Krauss.

"You know," Alan continues, "I felt like I wanted something that had some fun on it, because when I play in concert people still want to hear songs like 'Chattahoochee' and 'Don't Rock the Jukebox'—all those are a big part of our success too, as well as the big ballads. That's why I wanted to call it Good Time, even though the whole album's not a bunch of party songs."

The collection reunites Alan with his excellent long-time Nashville producer Keith Stegall, who encouraged him to stick with his own songs for this record. "We just went into the studio and started fooling with them," Alan says of the 22 songs he brought to the studio. "And every one I played, Keith would say, 'Yeah, we ought to cut that one.'

"I don't push my own songs; I always look for guidance from Keith. I've always gone in and said, 'We just want to make a good record.' I don't care if I write any of them or all of them. But this time I said, 'Are you sure you think we should do all these of mine?' We had some good outside songs he had found.

"The songs that ended up on the record all have different qualities that make up the record. It's a mixture of styles and subjects so somebody can hopefully find something on there to like."

As a songwriter, Alan always has been a little tricky to classify. His work is a hybrid of Nashville professionalism and personal expressiveness: His songs offer the hummable polish of the most expert Music Row copyrights at the same time that they expose the personal interiors that listeners associate with the work of self-contained singer-songwriters.

With its 17 straight-up original tunes related but not limited to what Alan calls "fun," Good Time is his most ambitious demonstration of how—whether working with the great '60s-based country-soul of "When the Love Factor's High," the strummed memories of "1976," the deceptive dittiness of "I Still Like Bologna," the harmonica-flecked "Never Loved Before," a duet with Martina McBride, or the Nashville elegance of "I Wish I Could Back Up"—the country song, in Alan Jackson's hands, is capable of all things.