Alan Jackson Debuts ‘Angels and Alcohol’ on ‘Jimmy Fallon’ [Watch]

Alan Jackson's new album is out Friday (July 17), and he debuted its title song during an appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.

The country icon is celebrating 25 years in the genre this year, and he isn't backing down from the strictly traditional approach that has given him all of his success over the years, as the song shows.

The track is a classic ballad that warns how alcohol will destroy a good woman's love: "You can't mix angels and alcohol / I don't think God meant for them to get along." It features acoustic guitars, pedal steel, mandolin and gently understated, simple and clean electric guitar lines, and Jackson delivers it with the same solid sincerity that has been his hallmark throughout his career. He doesn't leap around, blow things up or otherwise rely on staging to help his performance; Jackson's approach is to simply write the best songs he can, and then deliver them in an undeniably high-quality fashion that doesn't require any trickery.

Angels and Alcohol is Jackson's first full country album since Thirty Miles West, which debuted at No. 1 in 2012. He wrote seven of the 10 new tracks, and he says keeping it country is part of honoring a request from one of his own heroes, George Jones.

“He just loved real country music,” Jackson recalls. “When I first met him in 1990, he probably signed a picture for me and that’s what he wrote on there, ‘Keep It Country, George Jones.’”

Jackson is taking over Taste of Country this week, sharing rare content with our readers. Check out some classic photos below, and click for more Alan Jackson exclusives.

Proof Alan Jackson Has Always Kept It Country

Alan Jackson Just Doing What George Jones Asked