Three distinctive artists who shared a commitment to a creative path that separated them from their peers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame during a star-studded, open-hearted Medallion Ceremony on October 22, 2017, in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater.

Traditional country stalwart Alan Jackson, multi-talented Jerry Reed and songwriter Don Schlitz were feted with heartfelt testimonials, emotion-spiked speeches and memorable performances of the classic country material that these new Hall of Fame members brought to the world. The artists paying tribute crossed generations, backgrounds and styles, underscoring the universal nature of the art created by the men being inducted.

“This year’s class is special,” said Sarah Trahern, chief executive officer of the Country Music Association, the organization that elects the Hall of Fame members. “Each new member has written songs that have become part of our American musical history. Each new member is a master at creating timeless music that is often deceptively simple and still deeply meaningful.”

Produced by the staff of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Medallion Ceremony honors the inductees by highlighting their life stories, their important turning points, and the breakthrough artistic achievements that elevated their careers. The inductees are celebrated with speeches, live musical tributes and original video biographies, created by the museum staff using old and often rare recorded performances, past televised interviews and historic photos culled from materials collected, stored and digitized in the museum’s Frist Library and Archives. The ceremony conveys the unique talents, personalities and backgrounds of each Hall of Fame inductee and highlights why they deserve this prestigious honor.

“These men came to Nashville with no earthly idea of the mark that they would make,” said Kyle Young, CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. With hard work, they honed their talents to become masters of their chosen art. That mastery led to their induction into the Hall of Fame, country music’s highest honor.

As Young noted in the beginning of Alan Jackson’s induction, many of us know the Georgia native’s story because so many of his songs offer detailed scenes from his life, from growing up in Newnan, Georgia, to remaining devoted to his wife, Denise, whom he started dating in high school.  

“Jackson even told us—and sang to us—about how his interest in music started,” Young said, and he quoted Jackson’s “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow”: “Daddy won a radio, he tuned it to a country show. I was rocking in the cradle to the crying of a steel guitar.”

Like Reed and Schlitz, Young said, Jackson “was a child bent on discovery motivated by the wider world that came to his humble home through the radio waves.”

Unlike many stars, however, Jackson didn’t spend his early years practicing guitar or singing on stages. Instead, Jackson worked menial jobs starting at age 12, including stints as a forklift operator, a construction worker, an auto mechanic and a car salesman.

Jackson turned 23 before he began writing songs, and with all of his life experiences, he was able to reflect on the way real people live their lives. “He could write songs like ‘Home’ and ‘Small Town Southern Man’ about his parents,” Young said. “He could write ‘Chattahoochee’ about spending young days at the river. He could write songs that were relatable to all of us, but from a perspective and experience that was distinctly his own.”

Roger Murrah, a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, said Jackson didn’t follow the established formulas and practices of most Music Row professional songwriters. But, Murrah added, “You know what? It’s not like we do it, but it’s right. Man, that’s what’s going to separate him from the pack.”

Separating from the pack was exactly what Jackson did. “In an era when the safest way to keep a job as a recording artist is to replicate what everyone else is doing on the radio, Alan’s songs are marvels of distinctiveness and individuality,” Young said. “He is among the most original of traditionalists: Like Hank Williams, Merle Haggard and Loretta Lynn, Alan wrote and sang traditional country music songs that no one else could have written.”

By writing his specific story, Jackson tapped into emotions familiar to everyone, Young said: “the tug of family, the passage of time, the bittersweet changing of life’s circumstances.”

Young used the song “Drive” as an example. “Try to explain that song to someone, and you’ll say it’s about parents who let their kids drive,” Young said. “Play that song for someone, and they’ll likely wipe tears as they ponder the times when someone they loved put faith and trust in them.”

Young quickly summarized Jackson’s remarkable achievements: With more than 60 million albums sold, he is among the ten best-selling solo artists of all time, in any genre. He has recorded 50 Top Ten hits, and 35 #1 hits. He has won numerous Academy of Country Music awards, Country Music Association awards and Grammy awards. He is the most-performed country music songwriter-artist of ASCAP’s first 100 years.

“Alan accomplished all of this in spite of his discomfort with the spotlight, and his mistrust of the limelight,” Young said. “He didn’t want to be a star. He wanted to tell his stories, in ways that might enhance our own stories. He wanted to tell us his truth, and that’s exactly what he did.”

Jackson’s musical tribute began with Lee Ann Womack, who performed “Here in the Real World,” his first Top Ten hit, from 1990. Alison Krauss followed, offering a delicately powerful version of Jackson’s “Someday,” his third #1 hit, from 1991. Krauss was accompanied by guitarist Tommy Emmanuel.

To end Jackson’s tribute, his friend and one-time duet partner, George Strait, performed “Remember When,” a #1 hit from 2003, and a romantic tribute to Jackson’s wife, Denise.

For his formal induction, Jackson had asked that Hall of Fame member Loretta Lynn do the honors. “When he requested that she present him his medallion on this night, he did so knowing that she was working to recover from a debilitating stroke,” Young said. “When Loretta learned of the request, she offered up an enthusiastic ‘yes,’ though we all wondered if she would indeed be able to make it here to place a medallion around the neck of a tall troubadour from Newnan, Georgia.”

Young then introduced Lynn, to a thunderous ovation. Lynn walked to the podium with the assistance of Strait and her daughter Patsy Lynn Russell.
  
“Alan, I love you,” Lynn started. “The first time I ever met Alan, he looked like a scared little boy. He was backstage going through his songs. And I remember looking at him and saying, ‘You’re going to be one of the greatest singers in country music.’ He hasn’t let me down.”

Lynn, who has been recuperating from a stroke since May, has appeared only once in public, briefly walking onstage at a music festival on her property in Hurricane Mills. “This is the first time I’ve been out of the house,” she said. “You’re the only thing that would’ve brought me here.”

At first, Lynn started into a conventional statement about her love for Jackson’s music and how he deserves such an accolade. But mid-sentence, she stopped and cut to the chase: “Hey, you should be here.”

When Jackson got to the podium, after several hugs and private words from Lynn, he said, “Loretta Lynn said I should be here. That’s all I needed to hear. Now it’s official.”

Jackson agreed with Young’s assessment that he writes songs about what he knows, the life he has lived, and the values that matter to him. He recalled that Nashville DJ Gerry House used to joke about how all of Jackson’s songs had a line about a car part or a food identified with the South.
  
“I wrote about what I knew,” he said. “My daddy was a mechanic. I grew up in a garage. That’s all I cared about.”

Then he paused, and flashed some of the wit found in his songs, but rarely in his public statements: “That’s the reason I came to Nashville to be a singer, because I loved cars, and I couldn’t really buy any.”
He recalled how, in his 20s, he didn’t feel he had any direction in life, especially any that would allow him to buy a lot of cars. “Being a singing star seemed like the only shot I had,” he said. “That’s just about the truth.”
  
He came to Nashville “so naïve,” he said. He thought all singers wrote their own songs. He didn’t know what a record producer was. Nonetheless, he said, “God gave me a talent to throw some words together with some melodies, and it seems to have worked.”

Acknowledging that many people helped him along the way, Jackson cited connecting with producer and songwriter Keith Stegall as the most important relationship he formed. Shortly after Jackson arrived in Nashville, he heard Randy Travis’ hit “On the Other Hand” on the radio—a tune co-written by fellow inductee Don Schlitz. If Travis could succeed recording the kind of material Jackson loved, maybe there was a chance for him to record traditional country songs, too. Still, Jackson said, it was hard to get the labels interested in a traditional country singer.”

Then he met Stegall, who produced part of Travis’ groundbreaking Storms of Life album, which Jackson loved. “I knew Keith was the only guy who could record me the way I wanted to be recorded,” he said. “As soon as I went into the studio with Keith, he let me record my own songs the way I wanted. That’s when I finally got a record deal.”
  
Jackson checked a written list of people he wanted to thank, then blurted, “Fans,” drawing a burst of laughter, adding, “I came to Nashville because I wanted to make country music and write songs and record the kind of songs I like and that I thought my fans would like.”

As he started to conclude, Jackson cited a lyric from his song “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning),” saying, “I am just a singer of simple songs. That’s all I am.”

He then expressed much the same sentiment as he did in his first interviews in 1989: “I just love real country music. I want to keep it country. George Jones told me that, the first time I met him, and it stuck with me. I would’ve done it anyway, but it meant so much to me. I hope there will be some young people come along and do the same thing I did. You don’t hear it on the radio anymore today, but there’s still a lot of people out there who want to hear what I call real country music.”
  
After expressing his gratitude for the Hall of Fame induction, he pledged that he will continue to make the kind of country music he loves.