Every spring, the Country Music Hall of Fame announces its newest members who will be honored later in the year at the CMA Awards.

This year, the recording artists who are in the 2017 induction class have a combined 55 top ten hits and 28 number one songs.

Congratulations to true legends Alan Jackson and the late, great Jerry Reed.

I've had the good fortune to meet both.

Several years ago, Alan Jackson and Deana Carter were at Roberts Stadium and we had given away meet and greet passes to meet Alan.

I was lucky enough to escort the winners backstage where we were to join him on his tour bus.

How cool is that?!?

He was just really very nice and actually seemed a little shy. But he was very laid back and gracious toward our winners.

As superstars and legends go, I felt it didn't get much humbler than that.

 

Back in the 90s, before we bid a sad farewell to the Executive Inn, Jerry Reed performed at the Showroom Lounge and I got to bring him on.

When we'd do that, we'd find out from the road manager what to say about the artist. But Jerry's road manager just told me to go on backstage and into his dressing room--or the green room, I guess--and ask Jerry himself.

Unbelievable.

Here's a man whose movies I'd enjoyed as a kid (the trailer from the semi he drove in Smokey and the Bandit still sits in a field in Georgia and was recently used as a prop on The Walking Dead), and who had ALSO been a cartoon character on The New Scooby Doo Movies!

I was meeting a legend and it was awesome.

And he really was one of the nicest people I'd ever met.

It was a sad day when he passed.

Here are favorites of mine from both Alan and Jerry:

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