Alan Jackson - Where Have You Gone

Released in May 2021, Where Have You Gone is Alan Jackson's longest album and his least compromising. Twenty-one tracks, fifteen of them written by Jackson alone, and the title cut is a straight complaint about what happened to country music while nobody was watching. He has never been shy about that argument, but he has never made it at this length before.

The playing is all steel guitar and fiddle, recorded live with the band he has used for decades. "Where Her Heart Has Always Been" was written for his mother's funeral and includes an old recording of her reading scripture, which is as devastating as it sounds. "You'll Always Be My Baby" and "I Do" were both written for his daughters' weddings. "That's The Way Love Goes" tips a hat to Merle Haggard, and "The Older I Get" closes the set with the plainspoken wisdom that has always been Jackson's strongest suit.

Announced not long before he made his Parkinson's-related nerve condition public, the record plays now like a summation from a writer with nothing left to prove and no interest in chasing radio.