Alan Jackson photo courtesy of SonyBMG Nashville.

As for going with what he calls a frequently lighter country touch, Alan is equally common sense and matter-of-fact. "I've just always written things that are lighter, or simpler, just things that I like and things that my fans still like. I came along singing in little bars, singing everybody else's stuff. Then I came to Nashville to make country music, and this is still pretty much the kind of music I've made my whole career, from light, up-tempo things to serious, lost-love things. When people start classifying you in the industry as a writer, then it's real easy to start trying to write for writers and not for the fans. I think when you start writing for writers too much it gets too poetic, it gets too over-the-top, and regular people out there who've made me successful, the fans, they don't appreciate that kind of thing. They'd just rather have something that makes their day easier, you know."

He says he's not sure why refining and breathing new life into different stripes of classic country keeps compelling him. "I just write what I like," Alan says, "and I guess that's what I like. Take 'When the Love Factor's High': I love that song, and when I played that for my wife, she said, 'Man, I just love that—it's a country song. It's a great song.' When we came along, we loved Conway Twitty and Gene Watson and all those people. That's one of the reasons I came to Nashville, was to do that kind of music. A song like that might be hard to get that played on radio today. But that's just the way it is."

In the end, what you keep coming back to with Alan Jackson and his work is something that artists in any musical field might envy: balance. He is a dedicated, informed country classicist unafraid of the new. He is a first-rate songwriter who doesn't insist on singing only his own songs. He writes "heavy" songs about love and the world but also writes "light" songs that refuse to go light-headed. He wants to do what he wants to do but he also considers how his fans feel about things. He's won every award in the book but doesn't let that be the end of his creative stories.

The effortless range of Good Time recalls the work of Hank Williams—who, as Alan says, knew a thing or two about balance and keeping things creatively together. "He'd write uptempo 'Jambalaya,' 'Mind Your Own Business.' But then he'd write ballads and do religious songs and gospel things. He did all that stuff, and it all worked."

With Good Time, Alan says, "Keith and I just wanted to go in there and have fun making a record. We wanted to make a country record with the songs we wanted. My life is very wonderful, and I'm happy, and I think a lot of that reflects on my songwriting now. It's a good place. I don't feel like I need to prove or earn anything. I just want to make good music that I like and that I feel like people who buy my records might like. That's the bottom line, right there."

As country bottom lines go, Alan's is is among the very richest.