Alan Jackson, Jerry Reed, Don Schlitz Elected To Country Music Hall Of Fame

NASHVILLE, TN — Latter-day hitmaker Alan Jackson, Cajun rockabilly crossover icon Jerry Reed and legendary songwriter Don Schlitz are this year's inductees in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Country Music Association announced Wednesday.

The trio will be formally inducted into the hall later this year.

Jackson, Reed and Schlitz will enter the hall in the Modern Era Artist, Veterans Era Artist and Songwriter categories, respectively.

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Jackson is the second member of country music's Class of 1989 — a paradigm shifting group of mostly neo-traditional artists who released major label debuts that year, sparking the resurgence of country music in the 1990s — to enter the Hall of Fame, following fellow hat act Garth Brooks (some scholars also consider Vince Gill as a member of the Class of '89; Gill, coincidentally announced this year's inductions). Four singles from his debut album, "Here In The World," hit the top 3 on the American country charts, and the album went double platinum. He released four albums in five years, selling more than 20 million albums. In his career, nine of his 20 albums are certified as multi-platinum. He has notched 30 No. 1 songs and in 2014, ASCAP said he was the most performed country artist-songwriter in history.

Reed, whose quick-picking style earned him the sobriquet "Guitar Man," had a career that spanned five decades from the 1950s to the 1990s, with CMA Award nominations in four of those decades. Reed fused country, rockabilly and Cajun-style music in an style that heavily influenced later Southern rock acts. His two biggest crossover hits — "Amos Moses" and "When You're Hot, You're Hot" — added elements of funk and R&B as well. Reed was also an actor, appearing in, among other things "Smokey & The Bandit," for which he sang the classic theme song "East Bound and Down." Reed died in 2008.

Schlitz is one of the most successful songwriters of the last last five decades, penning 24 No. 1 songs and winning the CMA Song of the Year award three times. Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" was the first Schlitz-penned song ever recorded. Since writing what is perhaps Rogers' best known tune, Schlitz has added dozens of seminal songs to the country music pantheon, including Randy Travis’ “On the Other Hand” and “Forever and Ever, Amen,” Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” and Alison Krauss’ “When You Say Nothing At All.” Schlitz will be the seventh Songwriter inductee in the hall, joining Bobby Braddock, Boudleaux and Felice Bryant , Hank Cochran, Harlan Howard and Cindy Walker.

Images via Flickr user Joe Bielawa (Alan Jackson), RCA Records (Jerry Reed), and Don Schlitz