Mom admits she's starting to notice "heart palpitations" now that she's days away from seeing the oldest of three children graduate from high school.

Dad has escaped all of that worrying and "is just fooling around with the car."

Russ Harrington (ENLARGE)
Alan and Denise Jackson have held tight to their Georgia roots in the face of success.
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BOOK SIGNING Alan and Denise Jackson Book and CD signing. 2 p.m. today. Scotts Book Store, 28 South Court Square, Newnan. 770-253-2960. RELATED LINKS: • Dolly Parton, head to toe • Report: Clemens and McCready were an item for 10 years

When they both come back home to Newnan Tuesday, what he's looking forward to most is his mom's cube steak, gravy and biscuits — "you know, all of that stuff that'll kill ya."

Sure, they may sound like everyday, small-town folk, but Alan and Denise Jackson, who left Newnan in 1985, are big time in the country music and book worlds. Tuesday they are holding their first-ever signing as a twosome, and Tuesday night they will receive the first Richard Brooks Visionary Awards of Artistic Achievement at a splashy ceremony.

Days before their homecoming, Denise — The New York Times best-selling author of "It's All About Him" and the just-out "The Road Home" — called from their Fairfield, Tenn., house. Minutes later, Alan, the most nominated artist in Country Music Awards history, rang up separately from their nearby lakehouse.

How great is it, with all that you've accomplished, to have Newnan celebrate you?

Denise: Of course it's an honor, it's our home. And our kids [Mattie, Alexandra and Dani] are going to be able to be there, so this is even more special.

Alan: Well, being that so much about Newnan is in my music, like [the single] "Home," in a way it's like it's honoring me for honoring it in my writing. Which, you know, is a nice thing.

Describe Newnan as you remember it.

Denise: Small town. The kind of place you're lucky to grow up in. Everybody knows everybody or at least knows of them. Just a great community for family.

Alan: Now it's probably like a suburb of Atlanta. It's grown up a lot. But when I left it was just a good little town. All I knew. All I still know as home.

Is the Dairy Queen still there, where you two first met?

Denise: Yes ... but I try to stay away from those Peanut Buster parfaits these days. It's hard though.

[To Alan] Is it true that you snuck into the back seat of her car at the Dairy Queen that Sunday?

Alan: [Laughs] Yeah. It was her mom's LTD. Brown. Four-door.

Had that worked for you in the past or something?

Alan: Naw. That was my first time trying it.

Well, clearly something went right, as you all are headed toward 30 years of marriage next year.

Denise: He made an impression for sure. I'll say that.

Alan: I like to say it was love at first fright.