Alan Jackson Where Have You Gone Review

ALAN JACKSON – WHERE HAVE YOU GONE

ALBUM REVIEW BY RAY BURGESS (HIGHWAY 40)

Well its been six years since we have had a new material from the Tall Georgian, Alan Jackson. His latest offering released this month is titled “Where Have You Gone”. Its the sort of question we should be asking Alan but I think he has cleverly turned it round. Well at first glance the album oozes good value with a total of 20 tracks. So how does it fair.

The one thing that this does offer is a pure country sound with no hint of any crossover, as if he could. If you like a slide guitar and violins, this has it in abundance. Alan’s voice is as strong as ever and his songwriting with 15 of the tracks written by him shows off his writing skills.

There are three very personnel songs on the album, two relating to his daughters wedding and the other sadly written for Mama’s funeral. I am sure he was pleased with these songs but for my taste a bit cheesy and not the best things on the album.

My favorite tracks are related to drinking, but perhaps that’s me. The stand out track is “I Can Be That Something” a soft ballad and yes Whisky. Other stand out tracks are “Way Down In My Whisky” and “Livin’ In Empty”.

I have seen the video that accompanies the title track “Where Have You Gone” and if you like pictures of Nashville in Monochrome and not one sight of Alan, then you might like it.

Overall, I am sure Alan’s fans will like this latest offering. It has a strong old fashioned Country sound, but after listening to all 20 tracks, it could be classed as a ballad overload with not enough stand out songs. Possibly it would have been better if it had less tracks.

Nashville Worldwide Rating (Ray Burgess)