Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Jamey Johnson has been showered with plaques, trophies and award statuettes, but they aren’t the answer to his dreams.

"My dream already came true," says the Alabama native who has rocketed to Nashville stardom. "All I ever wanted was to get to just ride around and sing country music. It’s cool when things happen along the way, because those are things I never thought I could achieve. But whatever happens, I’ll just keep on doing what I do. I wake up every day and go play some more country music."

The things that have happened along the way include songwriter awards for 2005’s "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk," which Jamey co-wrote for Trace Adkins. In the spring of 2007, the Academy of Country Music gave Jamey a Song of the Year award for co-writing the George Strait hit "Give It Away," and the Country Music Association did the same later that year.

Mercury Records issued his album That Lonesome Song in the summer of 2008, and the collection was universally hailed as a masterwork. Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Esquire and The Los Angeles Times are just a few of the major publications that sang its praises.

The disc led to invitations from Willie Nelson to play Farm Aid and to appear on "Letterman" and "Leno." In April 2009, the album earned Jamey a Gold Record. The set’s "In Color" was named the Song of the Year by both the ACM and the CMA. During 2009 and 2010, Jamey collected five Grammy Award nominations. He toured with country titan Hank Williams Jr. and was one of the few country acts asked to play the massive Bonnaroo festival in June 2010.

In the midst of all of this, Jamey Johnson worked little by little on the landmark project that has become The Guitar Song. It is a 25-song, double album with thematically linked sets of songs dubbed the "Black Album" and the "White Album."

"The original idea was always to do a double album," says Jamey. "It is an album that is a tale. The first part of it is a very dark and sordid story. And then everything after that is progressively more positive, reassuring and redemptive."