Born in Louisville in 1953, Carl Jackson grew up in a musical family and learned guitar, mandolin, dobro, fiddle, and especially banjo in childhood. By age nine he was playing banjo with his father’s and uncles’ bluegrass band, The Country Partners, and at fourteen he joined Jim and Jesse McReynolds’ band, spending four years as one of their Virginia Boys with frequent Grand Ole Opry appearances. After a brief stint with Mississippi’s Sullivan Family Gospel group, he toured as featured banjo player for Glen Campbell from 1972 to 1984. Jackson went on to build a versatile career in bluegrass and mainstream country music as an instrumentalist, lead and backup vocalist, songwriter, and record producer. His recordings in the 1970s and early 1980s highlighted his banjo, guitar, and harmony vocals, and in 1986 he was a member of Emmylou Harris’s Angel Band. In the mid-1980s he recorded four country singles for Columbia Records, including two Top 40 hits, and became a backup vocalist for performers including Tammy Wynette, Roger Miller, Dolly Parton, Hank Williams Jr., Patty Loveless, and Garth Brooks. As a songwriter of hundreds of recorded songs, he wrote chart hits including “(Love Always) Letter to Home,” “Put Yourself in My Place,” and “No Future in the Past,” and his “Little Mountain Church House” was named the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Song of the Year for 1990. His 1991 collaboration with John Starling, Spring Training, won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. From the 1990s onward he also became a celebrated record producer, including on “Livin’, Lovin’, Losin’–Songs of the Louvin Brothers,” which won the 2003 Grammy for Country Album of the Year, and the 2011 project “Mark Twain: Words & Music.” Throughout his career he regularly returned to Louisville for “Home for Christmas” concerts, and in 2006 he was inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame.
