Vince Gill Inspires Alan Jackson

Alan Jackson Photo Courtesy of Arista Records

September 18, 2006--Alan Jackson admits that the urge to do something musically different on his new album may have been fueled by a comment Vince Gill made while introducing him at the CMA Awards a couple of years back.

"I don't know if the script writer wrote it, but he said, 'You always know what you're going to get from Alan Jackson. It's like driving through McDonald's,'" Alan tells Billboard. "I think he meant it as a compliment, but it kind of made me feel like 'Dang, McDonald's, man! I don't want to be like every time somebody buys an album, they are getting just another quarter-pounder with cheese.'"

So Alan took a creative stretch with his new CD, Like Red on a Rose, due September. 26 via Arista Nashville. The album was produced by Alison Krauss, whose criteria for choosing songs to record was simple. "If I were sitting across from a man, what would I want to hear him say?"

The new album is the first Alan has recorded without his longtime producer Keith Stegall. Alan says he enjoyed working with Alison, calling her approach "easy and organized," but says he's not finished working with Stegall. "I love Keith," he tells Billboard's Deborah Evans Price. "We've made a lot of great music together, there's nothing against him. It started because we wanted to do a bluegrass album, and I asked Alison to do it because Keith isn't really a bluegrass producer. Then of course, it evolved into this. But I'm not abandoning Keith, and I think we'll make some more great country records together."