Earlier this year, Alan Jackson bid farewell to the stage. The country icon wrapped up his Last Call: One More for the Road tour. Now 66 and battling a degenerative neurological condition called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, the “Little Bitty” crooner is looking forward to some well-earned downtime with his grandchildren. Across nearly four decades, the Georgia-born artist sold more than 75 million records across the globe. He also sent 35 songs to the top of the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. On this day in 1992, Jackson scored his sixth No. 1 with some help from Randy Travis.
Alan Jackson and Randy Travis Wrote This Song on Tour
By the early ’90s, Randy Travis and Alan Jackson were old writing buddies. The pair teamed up for “Forever Together,” “Better Class of Losers,” and “I’d Surrender All.” All three appeared on Travis’ 1991 album High Lonesome. While touring together that same year, the duo joined forces once again for the R&B-inspired “She’s Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues.)”
Blending traditional country with “the blues,” Jackson and Travis initially planned to pitch the song to blues legend B.B. King. Instead, Jackson opted to record it as the lead single off his third studio album, A Lot About Livin’ (And a Little ’bout Love), which also produced his seminal No. 1 hit “Chattahoochee.”
“Add in that “Yee-haw” ad-lib at the end of the first chorus, and a final hillbilly wail to close out the record, and you’ve got one of Jackson’s very best singles of the nineties,” Country Universe wrote of “She’s Got Rhythm.”
In 1993, the song received an award from Music City News for being one of the most performed country tunes of the year.
Hanging It Up
Earlier this year, Alan Jackson played his final show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Although he is planning one last blowout in Nashville next summer, the 16-time CMA Award winner has effectively retired from touring. He walks away with a reported net worth of $150 million, thanks to 18 studio albums, two Christmas albums and two gospel albums.
“I’ve been touring for over 30 years, you know, played everywhere in the country and parts of the world,” Jackson said in a 2024 YouTube video. “Have had a wonderful career, and getting into my twilight years. And all my daughters are grown, and I got one grandchild and one on the way. Enjoy spending more time at home, and don’t want to be away like I had to be in my younger days. And I don’t tour as much now as I did 10 years ago. But I think it’s getting time to start thinking about hanging it up full-time.”
Featured image by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
