Alan Jackson visits with GAC's Bill Cody on the set of The Collection.

Alan Jackson shares intimate stories behind the making of many of the music videos in his two-decade-long career on a very special two-part The Collection: Alan Jackson premiering Saturday, April 10 at 8 p.m. Eastern (part one) and Sunday, April 11 at 8 p.m. Eastern (part 2) on GAC (additional air times here). The video clips roll as host Bill Cody chats with the Grammy-winning star about the stories behind each video.

Bill starts at the very beginning – 1990 to be exact – with “Here in the Real World,” the hit song and video that to this day remain an important part of Alan’s musical legacy. It was the early days of video-making as Alan recalls, “It was just one guy holding a handheld camera and it was just natural light. Bringing in old footage (archival clips were included in the clip) was considered high tech.”

A couple of hits later, along came “Chattahoochee” and it seems this is the clip that launched Alan’s signature ripped jeans look. “We wanted to shoot me water skiing with long blue jeans on and they’re so heavy I said, ‘I’ve got this pair I had when I was a teenager and there’s not much left of them and they’d be a lot better in the water.’” From that point on it became his look. “Man, it costs more to have those holes put in than it does to buy new ones,” he jokes.

Alan also talks about “Summertime Blues,” which he calls a “sequel” to “Chattahoochee,” “I Don’t Even Know Your Name,” the title of which came from his brother-in-law and “Who’s Cheatin’ Who,” a NASCAR-themed clip in which the star did all of his own stunt driving. 

“Drive (For Daddy Gene)” was written to honor the memory of his father and Alan says, “I wanted to write something that had good memories … a bunch of things that meant something to me.”

Videos for “Five O’Clock Somewhere,” “Remember When,” and “Small Town Southern Man” are also included in the two-part series and although he recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of releasing his debut disc, Alan has no plans to slow down. His current video, “It’s Just That Way,” is from his just released album, Freight Train, and the concept for the clip was written by his college-age daughter, Mattie.

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