STEEL WORKERS, FIREMEN, LONGSHOREMEN AND OTHERS, STAR IN THE NEW VIDEO WHICH DEBUTS THIS WEEKEND ON CMT
“God bless the working man,” sings Alan Jackson in Hard Hat and a Hammer, the latest hit single from his acclaimed FREIGHT TRAIN album.

Award-winning director Theresa Wingert (Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley, Taylor Swift) wanted to echo Jackson’s sentiments, so she went all across the Southeast to film real working men and women on construction sites and in mines, at fire stations and in restaurants, to star with Jackson in the new video for Hard Hat and a Hammer, which makes its world premier this Friday, June 18, on CMT’s Big New Music Weekend.
Behind the scenes photo:   http://www.dbaronmedia.com/component/option,com_phocagallery/Itemid,129/id,21/view,category/
Wingert filmed strong imagery of the Americans “getting the job done” as a celebration of the great workforce that is “the glue that keeps the world together”. Featured are miners from Stilhouse mining in Benham, KY, workers from the Bayou La Batre, AL shipyard, railroad workers from TRR Railroad in Mobile and more. She filmed at paper mills, foundries, taxi stands, Nashville’s Fire Station #16 and Bar-B-Cutie and more than a dozen other locations (see below).

Jackson’s “easygoing ode to the working man” (Billboard) is the latest of his songs that honors his working class roots and family upbringing.  Last month he honored the fallen miners and rescue workers from April’s Upper Big Branch mining disaster with a benefit concert performance at the Charleston, WV Civic Center.  The 31 families affected and 230 rescue workers who were on site at the nation’s biggest mining disaster in four decades were offered free tickets to the show.  Jackson met with the families who lost loved ones and raised over $150,000 for the Montcoal Mining Disaster Fund.

Just last week, Billboard Magazine announced that Jackson was voted in the top 5 of the top 25 country artists of the last 25 years.  FREIGHT TRAIN, his 18th career album, was produced by longtime collaborator Keith Stegall and features 12 songs, 8 of which were written by Jackson.  In a moving tribute to the legendary Vern Gosdin, who passed away last year and for whom Jackson has long expressed admiration, Jackson enlisted Lee Ann Womack to record “Till the End,” Gosdin’s 1977 classic duet with Janie Fricke.

VIDEO LOCATIONS:
Rock Slide, TN
Stilhouse Mining, Benham, KY
Yeehaw Industries (printing press), Knoxville, TN
Domtar Paper Mill, Kingsport, TN
Goldens On The Square, Newnan, GA
Royale Cafe, Columbus, GA
Golden Foundry, Columbus, GA
All State Port Authority, Mobile, AL
Shipyard in Bayou La Batre, AL
TRR Railroad, Mobile, AL
Farmers Market, Nashville
Nashville Fire Station #16
Johnsons Hardware, Nashville, TN
Nashville Yellow Cab
Nashville Intercity Ministry
Bar-B-Cutie, Nashville