With his 50th birthday just around the corner (Oct. 17), country music superstar Alan Jackson is starting to take on the patina of an icon.

Jackson, with his signature Stetson and wooly, anachronistic moustache, is the Gary Cooper of Nashville, a stoic, stone-faced monument to an era when men were men and country was country. But a recent avalanche of accolades and achievements have helped to cement the artist as, as one honor puts it, one of the music's giants.

In August, shortly after the release of his 12th studio album, Good Time, he passed the milestone of 50 million records sold.

Last month, he received four Country Music Awards nominations -- Male Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Video of the Year -- bringing his career total to 79, more than any other artist in the awards' history.

And at the end of this month he will be feted at a taping of Country Music Television's "CMT Greats" (to air Dec. 6), where George Strait, Brad Paisley, Taylor Swift, Dierks Bentley, Lee Ann Womack, Miranda Lambert and others will pay musical tribute to his 18-year career with renditions of his biggest hits.

True to his self-effacing, Cooper-esue style, Jackson shrugs off all the recent attention with a touch of indifference.

"I'm still amazed that my career has lasted all these years," he says. "All this other stuff comes with it, if you've been around that long."

Jackson was born in Newnan, Ga., the youngest and only boy in a family of five children. Today he is still surrounded by women, with a wife and three daughters: Mattie, 17; Ali, 15; and Dani, 11. When pressed, Jackson says the strong female presence in his life may have pointed him toward the arts in a life that otherwise would have been

filled with more manly pursuits. "It probably gave me the opportunity to be a little more sensitive toward what women think or like," he says.

At the age of 21, Jackson married his high school sweetheart, Denise, and slowly, almost by happenstance, fell into a career as a musician.

"I just grew up in a little town, got married young, and piddled around with two jobs," Jackson remembers. "I didn't finish college. I didn't really have anything else to do. I'd been singing some on the weekends and people said I sound pretty good. So I said, 'I'm going to go to Nashville.' That was about it."

Jackson arrived in Music City in 1985 as artists like Randy Travis and Strait were again making the town safe for cowboy boots and big hats after years of pop crossover music dominating the country soundscape. After first establishing himself as a songwriter, Jackson made his recording debut in 1990 with Here In the Real World. The album became a multi-platinum smash behind singles like "I'd Love You All Over Again" and "Chasin' That Neon Rainbow."

The fairytale has not been without its hiccups, however. A decade ago, the Jacksons' marriage suffered under the strains of Alan's career and the couple briefly separated, a period Denise Jackson recounted last year in the bestselling spiritual memoir "It's All About Him: Finding the Love Of My Life."

(The "Him" of the title is God, a reference to Denise Jackson's personal faith. Since the publication of her first book, she has turned her writing foray into a career with the inspirational follow-up, "The Road Home" coming out earlier this year.)

"We had some problems and about busted up, but we worked it all out," Jackson says of his marriage difficulties, which include an affair he had. "We started out as kids, you know. Got married real young and didn't really know much about life and marriage and all that kind of stuff. We were lucky to survive just normally, but then when you add the music business on top of that and me being gone. First five years I was gone 200 to 300 days a year. A brand new baby and another one a couple of years later, it's just a lot of strain on a relationship."

These days, though, home is a refuge for Jackson. He rises at 5:30 a.m. and spends time with his daughters. When they go to school, he tools around his spread in rural Franklin, Tenn., fixing his many cars and boats. Afternoons are usually taken up with the girls' sporting events. And he's performing with a fury following the release of Good Time.

Good Time is a return to the tradition-bound sound of albums like Here In the Real World, following a pair of projects that found Jackson breaking out of his box. Precious Memories from 2006 was a simple gospel record meant as a gift to Jackson's mother. The same year he broke away for the first time from longtime studio partner Keith Stegall to let Allison Krauss produce him on the sophisticated Like Red On A Rose.

Jackson and Stegall reunited for Good Time, which features a staggering 17 tracks, all, for the first time, written by the singer. The album's title track and "Small Town Southern Man" have both already gone to No. 1 on the country charts, helping keep alive Jackson's streak of having at least one song in the Top 20 every year since his 1990 debut.

While other acts try to update country music with rock sizzle and R&B flair, Jackson stays true to the sounds of Hank Williams Sr. and George Jones. As Jackson sang on "Murder on Music Row," his 2000 cult-favorite duet with fellow traditionalist Strait: The almighty dollar/And the lust for worldwide fame/Slowly killed tradition/And for that, someone should hang.

"There's always an audience out there that wants to hear real country music," says Jackson. "And I think there'll always be young people coming to town like I did 20 years ago that want to sing the sort of stuff I do. ... The fans out there know the difference. There'll always be somebody carrying that flag for real country music."

Alan Jackson in Memphis

KIX 106 25th anniversary show featuring Alan Jackson, Trace Adkins, and James Otto at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Nov. 11) at FedExForum.

Tickets are $49.50 and $65 at FedExForum's box office and through Ticketmaster (901) 525-1515.