When Alan Jackson sat down with NBC’s Jenna Bush Hager at his Nashville home on September 28, 2021, the setting was as familiar as the conversation was seismic. The country music legend, then 62, chose the comfort of his own living room to share a secret he had guarded since 2011: he has been living with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, an inherited neurological disorder that damages peripheral nerves, affecting muscles in the arms, legs, hands, and feet.
Jackson had watched the condition shape the lives of his family members before it touched his own. His paternal grandmother, his older sister, and his father—Joseph Eugene Jackson, the Georgia auto mechanic who inspired the 2002 hit “Drive (For Daddy Gene)”—all lived with the same disease. For Jackson, the 2011 diagnosis was a moment of clarity, explaining symptoms he had seen in his own lineage for years.
Because Charcot-Marie-Tooth progresses slowly and is not fatal, Jackson kept working, recording albums like The Bluegrass Album (2013) and Angels and Alcohol (2015), headlining his Keepin’ It Country Tour for his 25th career anniversary, and being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in October 2017. But by 2021, the condition had begun to visibly affect his movement on stage, and Jackson knew he could no longer hide it.
“I was stumbling around on stage, and I didn’t want people to think I was drunk,” Jackson told Bush Hager, his voice steady even as his legs faltered.
At six feet four inches, Jackson had spent three decades striding across stages in boots and jeans, tossing souvenirs and signing autographs while his band, The Strayhorns, played on. The nerve damage never touched his vocal cords, allowing him to sing in his original keys even as standing for 90 minutes became a physical ordeal. At home, his wife Denise and their three daughters—Mattie, Ali, and Dani—helped him adapt, and Jackson insisted he felt no bitterness about a career he had built from his Georgia roots.
In May 2022, Jackson launched his Last Call: One More for the Road Tour, scheduling arena dates around his endurance rather than the back-to-back bus runs of his 1990s prime. The tour kicked off in Biloxi, Mississippi, on June 24, 2022, but by September, he had to postpone dates in Atlantic City and Pittsburgh on medical advice. After a rest year in 2023, the final leg began in August 2024, covering just ten arenas from Boston to Milwaukee, concluding in May 2025.
At each show, Jackson offered his audiences a clear message: these concerts marked the end of his traveling days, though he left the door open to recording at home. On stage, he stood centered at the microphone under his white Stetson, letting his voice and The Strayhorns carry the room—a testament to a career that, even as his legs weakened, remained as powerful as ever.