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CD review: Alan Jackson’s “Freight Train”
Alan Jackson
“Freight Train” (Arista Nashville)
Grade: B-
It’s taken Alan Jackson a mere 20 years to become a respected elder of country music. Aside from an ill-advised dance remix of “Chattahoochee” in 1993, the man in the white Stetson has not wavered in his commitment to the pure country of his prime model Merle Haggard. The pedal steel guitar is not there for decoration, hoss. At the same time, Jackson has managed to stay current by writing great songs fans can two-step to and choosing the right outside material.
On his latest album, which hits stores today, the Georgia native finds such originals as “Every Now and Then,” the pandering lead-off track “Hard Hat and a Hammer” and “That’s Where I Belong” (surprising only because it took Jackson this long to write a song called “That’s Where I Belong”) overshadowed by such writers as Fred Eaglesmith (title track) and Jay Knowles and Adam Wright (“Taillights Blue”). Since an artist of Jackson’s stature gets first dibs on the best new songs, you wonder why he insisted on penning eight of the LP’s 12 tracks. As evidenced by the number of platinum records on George Strait’s walls, fans don’t care who wrote the songs. Jackson seems to be running out of things to say and ways to say them.
Still, this is a solid record, with Jackson’s smooth, yet lived in, baritone, lifting up every tune. A.J.’s been nothing if not consistent through the years, but there are standouts, including the duet with Lee Ann Womack on “Till the End,” as the singers urge each other on emotionally. New original “The Best Just Keeps Getting Better,” meanwhile, ends the album on a classic country note.
Twenty years after he advocated not rocking the jukebox, Jackson makes albums that sound like his others. But that’s not a bad thing, as Jackson and his producer Keith Stegall have perfected a formula to make records that sound like Bakersfield 1973 because everything else on the radio sounds like Nashville 2000. This is authentic country music by default.
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By Barry
March 30, 2010 5:22 PM | Link to this
A lot of the fans may not care who wrote the songs, but a lot of artists do. I applaud Alan for being a genuine article and writing and/or co-writing most of his own material. Makes it more real.