Spirit of Cash? Good old boys Alan Jackson and Brad Paisley keep their roots intact BY SEAN RICHARDSON

Over the course of his storybook 13-year career, 44-year-old country star Alan Jackson has sold a whopping 32 million albums. So it’s a little surprising that his current single, "It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere," is shaping up to be the biggest pop crossover hit he’s ever had. But the real shocker is the track itself, a honky-tonk duet with Jimmy Buffett. That’s right, the 56-year-old Buffett is back on pop radio for the first time in about 20 years, with a chorus all to himself on the lead single from an album, Jackson’s Greatest Hits Volume II (Arista), that debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 when it was released last month. Score one for the old guard in the young person’s game that is the music industry.

"It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere" is a lighthearted Labor Day Weekend anthem for pop fans of all ages — or at least those of legal drinking age. "Pour me something tall and strong/Make it a Hurricane before I go insane," sings Jackson in his famous Georgia drawl as he heads for the bar on his lunch break during a tough day at the office. He thinks about going back to work for a second, then asks himself the magic question: "What would Jimmy Buffett do?" Buffett chimes in with his usual glee, and the two friends stay out all night exchanging Margaritaville stories.

Buffett came through New England last month on his annual summer tour; now Jackson is on a high-profile swing through the Northeast that includes live performances this Friday on NBC’s Today show and this Saturday at the FleetCenter. It’s been another amazing year for Jackson, who recently won his first Grammy for the smash September 11 tribute "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)." At the Country Music Association Awards in November, he’ll be going for his third consecutive Entertainer of the Year award.

Greatest Hits Volume II is the latest in a long line of hit releases for Jackson that includes eight proper albums, two Christmas outings, a disc of cover songs, and the multi-platinum The Greatest Hits Collection. The first act ever signed to Arista’s Nashville division, he quickly earned a reputation as a hitmaking singer-songwriter who valued tradition over commercialism, becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1991. His third album, 1992’s A Lot About Livin’ and a Little ’Bout Love, cast him as a more roots-minded alternative to Garth Brooks at the height of the country-pop explosion. Featuring the upbeat romp "Chattahoochee," which gets its name from the river that runs along the Georgia-Alabama line not far from where Jackson grew up, the disc sold six million copies and remains his most successful release.

Arranged in chronological order, Greatest Hits Volume II begins by covering the brief period of commercial decline Jackson underwent in the late 1990s. Since his strength is his clever, heartfelt writing, it’s probably no coincidence that most of his hits from this period aren’t originals: he and producer Keith Stegall are such no-nonsense stylists, they’re not going to overpower Music Row clichés on their own. Still, consistency is one of their biggest selling points, and there are no real misses on the album. "Little Bitty" opens the disc with an affable twang, and the title track to 1996’s Everything I Love is a dour, honest sigh: "Everything I love is killing me/Cigarettes, Jack Daniel’s, and caffeine." The 1998 High Mileage splits the difference between the jazz-tinged elegance of "Right on the Money" and the muted rage of the Jackson-penned "Little Man."

Jackson has always been one of the most likable good old boys on country radio: he’s not afraid to keep up with the times, and he excels at finding humor in the tension between small town and big city. On the hilarious 2000 hit "Where I Come From," he drives around the country preaching the gospel of cornbread and chicken, earning funny looks and blank stares from New Jersey to Southern California. He gives the Internet a try but makes few other modern concessions on "www.memory," a bluesy look at a love affair gone sour. The Hank Williams Jr. roadhouse epic "The Blues Man," which pre-dates the information age, is the deepest of three selections from Jackson’s 1999 covers album, Under the Influence.

A few seasons of dwindling album sales behind him, Jackson resumed his commercial dominance with a bang on last year’s comeback disc, Drive. His first to cross over to #1 on pop-album charts, the release was accompanied by heavy rotation for "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)," which he performed for the first time at the CMA Awards just two months after September 11. A poignant, Scripture-quoting counterpart to Toby Keith’s belligerent "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)," the string-laden ballad remains one of the defining pop artifacts of that sad time.

The album’s other smash, the hillbilly shuffle "Drive (For Daddy Gene)," is more likely to elicit tears of joy than sorrow. The most unhinged vocal performance on Greatest Hits Volume II, it’s a sentimental look back at the first time Jackson’s father let him take the wheel, with a present-day conclusion that finds him doing the same with three daughters of his own. Drive also landed two other tracks, "That’d Be Alright" and "Work in Progress," in the Top 40 on its way to four million sold, but neither of those is included on the new greatest-hits collection.

"Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" and "Drive" represent a new songwriting plateau for Jackson, so for all the good-time charm of "It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere," hardcore fans would be justified in considering the tune’s Music Row–penned frivolities a retreat. But the other new recording on Greatest Hits Volume II, "Remember When," is a tender ballad that embraces his serious side. "Remember when 30 seemed so old/Now looking back, it’s just a stepping stone," he sings on the ode to marriage, with little more than a mandolin and a small string section behind him. Like his pre-Garth country heroes, Jackson doesn’t need much more than God, family, and the occasional noontime trip to the bar to live the good life.

THE SPIRIT OF JOHNNY CASH must be smiling on New England this weekend, because Jackson isn’t the only chart-topper with honky-tonk roots who’s in the area. One of his bestselling Arista labelmates, 30 year-old heartthrob Brad Paisley, is here for a Sunday gig at the Central Massachusetts country stronghold Indian Ranch. Paisley is touring in support of his third album, Mud on the Tires (Arista), which became his first release to land in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 when it came out a few months back.

Paisley’s records are more modern-sounding than Jackson’s, as the recent hit "Celebrity" attests: the track’s lyrical approach and instrumentation are country enough, but the production is straight out of the Mutt Lange school of pop crossover. "No matter what you do/People think you’re cool/Just because you’re on TV/Being a celebrity," Paisley jeers, radio-ready vocal harmonies and pleasant guitar jangle backing him up. In the song’s music video, he plays an American Idol contestant, but Seinfeld star Jason Alexander steals the show by throwing a fit over a cup of coffee.

Paisley knows a thing or two about celebrity: his new bride, actress Kimberly Williams, stars in the ABC sit-com According to Jim. He himself grew up outside Wheeling, West Virginia, where he got used to the spotlight at a young age with regular performances at Jamboree USA. He was signed after a stint at Belmont University in Nashville; when his first two albums went platinum, he was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. With the 2000 CMA Horizon award already under his belt, he’s up for four more trophies at this year’s show.

The overt commercialism of "Celebrity" plays down Paisley’s primary claim to authenticity: this guy is a bona fide country guitar god. Sure, his voice is solid, and he wrote more than half the songs on Mud on the Tires, but serious fans show up to hear him play the paisley, mud-splattered Telecaster he’s cradling on the album cover. He gives them their money’s worth with two instrumentals at the end of the disc, including a humorous shootout with Merle Haggard sideman Redd Volkaert called "Spaghetti Western Swing." The two-part suite "Make a Mistake"/"Make a Mistake with Me" plays to all his strengths: it starts off as a playful ode to a lover with cold feet, then turns into a ripping country-jazz instrumental.

After his musicianship, Paisley’s next biggest calling card is his sense of humor. "Celebrity" works as both ear candy and satire, and the droll "Famous People" takes the joke one step farther when its local-yokel protagonist has a run-in with a movie star. Even the newlywed love songs "Little Moments" and "That’s Love" are full of smirks: "I like it when your mama comes to visit us/That’s not a lie, that’s love," he snickers on the latter. The album’s most serious moment, the Alison Krauss duet "Whiskey Lullaby," is also its most affecting. It’s a redneck Romeo and Juliet with a haunting vocal refrain, and Paisley manages to play it straight while keeping up with Krauss on the microphone. The way he’s going right now, it might not be long before he earns a couple of his own greatest-hits collections, à la Alan Jackson.

Alan Jackson performs this Saturday, September 20, at the FleetCenter; call (617) 624-1000. Brad Paisley performs this Sunday, September 21, at Indian Ranch in Webster; call (508) 943-3871.