Making a huge difference during his final send-off.
On Saturday, the country music world came together at Nissan Stadium in Nashville to honor Alan Jackson with his star-studded Last Call: One More For the Road – The Finale concert. The concert immediately became one of the hottest tickets of the year — the stadium was packed, the streets were packed and a big video board was placed on Broadway for a public showing. Just about everybody in business showed up to send off one of the best to ever play the game.
Along with Alan, the show featured an all-star lineup of Eric Church, George Strait, Luke Bryan, Luke Combs, Riley Green, Cody Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Jake Owen, Jon Pardi, Thomas Rhett, George Strait, Carrie Underwood, Lainey Wilson and Lee Ann Womack
Of course, the living legend wrapped up his career by performing a plethora of career-defining tracks such as “Chattahoochee,” “Drive (For Daddy Gene),” “Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning),” “Remember When” and an additional 21 other hits throughout his illustrious career.
Simply put, there could not have been a better, more fitting send-off for one of the most influential artists in the genre’s history, who not only has 19 ACM Awards, 17 CMA Awards, two Grammys, 50 Top 10 hits and 35 #1 hits, but also has inspired three generations of country fans at this point in his career.
Though it’s been a large part of his story over the years, the driving force behind Jackson’s retirement was his diagnosis of Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease, a degenerative nerve condition that made it hard for the country music legend to stand and keep his balance — something he announced back in 2021. While he assured fans the disease isn’t fatal, it’s made it harder for the legend to tour and deliver the performance that he wants for fans:
“It’s starting to affect my performance on stage a little bit, where I don’t feel comfortable and I just wanted the fans and the public to know, if they’ve come to see me in the last few years or if they come to see me in the future if I play anymore, what’s going on.”
Given this, the living legend made a major donation to aid researchers in their fight against the disease during the concert.
Announced by the CMT Research Foundation, Jackson raised and donated over $2.25 million dollars to the non-profit through ticket sales, matching contributions and fan donations, thanks to the awareness he brought to the disease through his battle over the past five years.
In case you’re not aware of the CMT Research Foundation, it’s a patient-led, non-profit organization that aims to raise funds to invest in science that will lead to treatments and cures for CMT, which affects over 150,000 Americans and over 3 million individuals worldwide.
As for what his donation entails, the foundation would detail that the funding is supporting real, active progress for a smartphone tool that can track CMT progression, smarter drug delivery to the nerves affected by CMT, matching the right genetic treatment to CMT2A and blood tests that measure whether treatment is working.
