In late 2020, the song Alan Jackson had written for his mother’s funeral was recorded and mixed. Then, at Christmas, one of his sisters sent the family an old recording, and the song changed. When “Where Her Heart Has Always Been” came out in 2021, the first voice on it belonged to Ruth Musick Jackson, the woman it was written for.
Mama Ruth and the House in Newnan
Ruth Musick was born on April 2, 1930, in Lowell, Georgia. She married Joseph Eugene Jackson, known as Daddy Gene, in 1946, when she was 16. They raised four daughters, Diane, Cathy, Carol and Connie, and one son, Alan, the youngest, in a small house in Newnan, Georgia.
She lived in that house for about 70 years. Her son later turned it into the song “Home.” Fans who drove by the Jackson place often ended up on her front porch with a glass of sweet tea and a photo.
She was also behind some of his most personal records. The gospel album Precious Memories began as a Mother’s Day gift for her, and Let It Be Christmas was made because she asked for it.
On the morning of Saturday, January 7, 2017, Mama Ruth died peacefully at her home in Newnan. She was 86. Daddy Gene had died in January 2000. She left five children, 12 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren.
A Song Written for the Funeral
Her funeral was held on January 12, 2017, at Newnan Central Baptist Church. For the service, Alan turned to the thing he knew best. He wrote a song.
“Where Her Heart Has Always Been” describes the morning she passed and his belief that she had gone to a better place. He made a demo of it, and for a long time that was as far as it went.
Years Without New Music
Alan had been working toward a new album, but family loss kept stopping it. After his mother’s death came the death of his son-in-law Ben in 2018, and the songs already cut were set aside. He later said he did not really feel like making music for a couple of years.
I didn’t delay it on purpose.
When he was ready again, the pandemic shut down studio plans in the spring of 2020. The album was finally recorded in late fall 2020, and the song for his mother went on it. The first mix of the track was finished before the end of the year.
The Christmas Gift
That Christmas, one of Alan’s sisters sent the family a present. It was a recording of their mother, made a few years before she died, while she was still doing well. Mama Ruth was reading the Christmas story from the Bible, along with other passages.
The reason the recording existed was simple. The family had wanted to have a recording of her voice. Years later, after she was gone, it turned up again.
Alan was delighted with the gift. It did not stay only a family keepsake for long.
One Line Before Her Son Sings
He and his team went back into the finished track. From the reading, they chose a single short line, one that was not obviously about Christmas, and placed it at the very start of the song. Alan said he thought it made the song.
He was honest about how she sounded. In her last few years her voice had become scratchy, he said, but that did not matter to him.
She was just such a sweet woman, a sweet, sweet lady.
So it stayed. On the album, the track’s full title notes that it was written for Mama’s funeral and opens with an old recording of her reading from the Bible.
Where Have You Gone
“Where Her Heart Has Always Been” was released on April 30, 2021. The album Where Have You Gone, his first new studio album since Angels and Alcohol in 2015, followed on May 14, 2021. It held two other family songs, “You’ll Always Be My Baby” and “I Do,” written for his daughters’ weddings.
Listeners who pressed play on the funeral song heard an elderly Georgia woman reading scripture in a slightly scratchy voice. A moment later, her son began to sing about the morning she left.
Singing It Again for Loretta
On October 30, 2022, Alan stood on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville for Coal Miner’s Daughter: A Celebration of the Life and Music of Loretta Lynn. He chose to sing the song he had written for his mother.
Before he started, he explained why. Loretta had always reminded him of Mama Ruth, he said. Both women were outgoing, sweet and genuine, and both would tell you exactly what was on their minds.