Alan Jackson‘s new album, Where Have you Gone – his first in 6 years – is available now!

The new project from Alan features 21 songs — 15 of them written by Alan himself, who says “Some of the greatest tracks I feel like we’ve made.”

Talking about Where Have You Gone Alan shares, “This album is about life and love and heartache and drinking and dancing and crying and dying and Mama, and all that great stuff that’s always been a part of great country music and it continues with this album, just more of the same.”

It’s been a while since he’s released a new album, but Alan says that wasn’t his plan, life just had a way of planning out the timing for him, he says “It wasn’t intentional. I think we were pretty much on track to do an album like we typically have every couple of years or two or three years and just had some little rough spots in my life and personal things that slowed us down and set me back that we had to get through, my family and myself. And for several years there, I really didn’t feel like writing at all and recording, and it took a while to get back in gear.”

When Alan was ready, it turns out the world had different plans, “Last spring, I think it was, I was ready, and we booked studio time and got ready to go in and I started thinking about writing songs again. And then the virus thing hit and everything kind of came to a halt and we dealt with that all last year.”

But when Alan is ready to record, Alan is ready record, he adds “Later in the summer, I called Keith Stegall, my producer, and said ‘hey man, I’m tired of waiting on this thing. Let’s just do it.’ So, we just decided to go ahead and get everybody in the studio whether they had to wear a mask or a helmet or whatever they had to wear and get in there and cut this thing. (laughs)”

When it comes to the album’s title, Alan thought there might be another track on the project that would have made the cut, “I thought it would be ‘Wishful Drinking’ or something.” 

But once everyone heard “Where Have You Gone” they knew that was the one to share the album’s title, “Once we recorded and all the people around me and everybody had their hearsay about it most people wanted that to be the album title and the first track and I loved it. I mean I loved it but I didn’t think anybody else would. But I’m proud that it’s the title.”

Of course, Alan jokes there was one thing that concerned him about the album’s title, “I was little worried that people thought the title meant I hadn’t had an album out in six years, where have you gone? (laughs)”

Where Have You Gone Track List:

01. “Where Have You Gone” (Alan Jackson)
02. “Wishful Drinkin’” (Alan Jackson)
03. “I Can Be That Something” (Alan Jackson)
04. “Where the Cottonwood Grows” (Alan Jackson)
05. “Way Down In My Whiskey” (Alan Jackson)
06. “Things That Matter” (Robert Keith Stegall, Michael White)
07. “Livin’ On Empty” (Alan Jackson)
08. “You’ll Always Be My Baby (Written for Daughters’ Weddings)” (Alan Jackson)
09. “Where Her Heart Has Always Been (Written for Mama’s funeral with an old recording of her reading from The Bible)” (Alan Jackson)
10. “The Boot” (Adam Wright)
11. “Back” (Alan Jackson)
12. “Write It In Red” (Alan Jackson)
13. “So Late So Soon” (Scotty Emerick, Daniel Tashian, Sarah Buxton)
14. “This Heart Of Mine” (Adam Wright)
15. “A Man Who Never Cries” (Alan Jackson)
16. “Chain” (Alan Jackson)
17. “I Was Tequila” (Alan Jackson)
18. “I Do (Written for Daughters’ Weddings)” (Alan Jackson)
19. “Beer:10” (Alan Jackson)
20. “The Older I Get”* (Hailey Whitters, Adam Wright, Sarah Turner)
Extra Track: “That’s The Way Love Goes” (A Tribute to Merle Haggard) (Lefty Frizzell, Whitey Shafer)
Produced by Robert Keith Stegall
*Produced by Keith Stegall

Check out the title track from Alan Jackson’s new album Where Have You Gone, right here…

Photo Credit: Russ Harrington