You can probably count the number of country singers on one finger who've parachuted into a jungle to help overthrow a Panamanian dictator.

That same finger would probably accommodate the sum total of country singers who've worn a sheriff's deputy badge before they ever donned a body mike.

One singer has accomplished both feats, and the living proof will be here next weekend: Nashville hit-maker Craig Morgan, purveyor of 2005's most-played country song, "That's What I Love About Sunday" (a career-making record logged and confirmed by Billboard magazine).

Morgan headlines a Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts Center show at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 13, and, in the process, becomes the first major male country act in the venue's two-season history.

Though Morgan, 43, has been out of the Army and away from law enforcement for more than a decade, he says he's retained the finer points of those career moves in his role as showbiz entertainer.

Not that he expected he would ever need to.

"I came to Nashville never really thinking I'd make a living at this," he confesses. "And I'm serious as a heart attack about that. I thought I would retire from the Army and settle down being a sheriff in a small town."

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

But Morgan's lifelong musical interests were giving him an itch that needed to be scratched.

When he joined the Army in the mid-'80s and was stationed in South Korea, he used his experiences as grist for songwriting urges.

He wound up winning some Army-sponsored music contests and, in his first taste of his own future, opened for country stars Sawyer Brown during a Korean visit.

In 1990, he saw combat via Operation Just Cause as part of the U.S. campaign to overthrow Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.

That harrowing life-or-death experience gave rise to one of Morgan's first meaningful songs, "Paradise," destined to be a single off his self-titled debut album a decade later.

Prior to his Army stint, Morgan had worked as an emergency medical technician at age 18; after he left active duty in 1996 (having earned the rank of staff sergeant), Morgan served time as, among other things, a sheriff's deputy, a department store security guard and a construction worker.

In short, Morgan, a plainspoken product of rural Tennessee, had packed a dozen albums' worth of life experiences into his three-decades-plus on Earth.

With that artillery strapped in place, he headed off to Nashville, not really believing he'd be sticking around that long.

"But I thought I'd give it a try, even though so many people try it on and don't wear it well. I gave myself a couple years and, if it didn't work, I'd go back to the Army."

Uncle Sam's loss was country music's gain: Morgan landed a job singing demos for other songwriters and publishing companies, and wore it well - well enough that he was signed by Atlantic Records and had his own self-titled album in stores by the century's turn, 2000's "Craig Morgan."

But it was a sudden career leap nearly as perilous as a parachute jump to take out a dictator: shortly after the album was released, the record label folded, leaving Morgan stranded in a different kind of jungle.

But he found his way out, even though it took nearly three years after his splashy debut. His savior was a smaller, independent label called Broken Bow Records, who shepherded Morgan through a trio of increasingly popular albums, spinning off beaucoup hits like that aforementioned biggest country hit of '05.

Then there was his No. 1 follow-up to that smash, "Redneck Yacht Club," and, more recently, his ode to the mechanics of farming, "International Harvester."

"Oddly enough," begins Morgan, it's the latter song that has upped his ante in the Midwest, a market that has always been somewhat softer for him than, say, the southeast and northeast.

It doesn't hurt that the company that gives the song its moniker is headquartered in Chicago.

"It's taken a lot of shows and an investment of time," he begins. "Before, the audiences knew the music, but they didn't necessarily place a face and the music together. Because of the song, they have kind of brought them up to the same status we've had everywhere else."

Or welcome Midwesterners to the strategically mapped world of Craig Morgan, who confesses that he applies his military/lawman training to every aspect of a career.

"Because of that experience, I learned a great deal of discipline and an appreciation of how good we have it here, so you don't hear me complaining about the catering."

And, "I run a pretty tight ship. When you do something that long - I was on active duty for 11 years - without a doubt it's going to influence the way you do business. The military is a very disciplined lifestyle, and that's been instilled in me and carried over into my life today. I get up early to do exercises, and I have a great deal of appreciation for life; I don't tolerate a lot of whining and complaining."

Instead, his strategy and mission in life is to stress that unending gratitude he has for his country and fellow countrymen.

"I want the promoters and the venues and the people to know how grateful we are to have been there. Other guys maybe don't care that much, but I do."

Then, after the show, on the bus with the band, "it's always 'us,' 'we' and 'team.'"

Except, he notes, when it comes to deciding what channel gets tuned into on the bus TV set.

"I pay the bills, and they know it. So I get to watch what I want to watch," decrees the singer with the seasoned authority of a former sheriff's deputy.

---

Sgt. Morgan's rank & file

Real name: Craig Morgan Greer

Birth date: July 17, 1965

Home town: Kingston Springs, Tenn.

First gig: Emergency medical technician, age 18

Second gig: The United States Army, age 21, with 10 years active duty (1986-96), including combat action in 1989's Operation Just Cause in Panama

Highest rank: Staff sergeant

Post-Army, pre-country star gigs: Sheriff's deputy, department store security guard, construction worker, Wal-Mart employee

First musical highlight: Opened for Sawyer Brown while stationed in Korea

First Nashville success: Signed by Atlantic Records in 1999, followed by first album in 2000

Second Nashville success: Signed by indie label Broken Bow Records, resulting in three hit albums, "I Love It" (2003), "My Kind of Livin' " (2005) and "Little Bit of Life" (2006)

Hit singles: "Almost Home" (2003), "That's What I Love About Sunday" (2005), "Redneck Yacht Club" (2005), " I Got You" (2005), ""Little Bit of Life" (2006), "Tough" (2007) and "International Harvester" (2008)

One for the record books: "That's What I Love About Sunday" was country music's most-played radio hit of 2005, sitting at No. 1 for five weeks

Sgt. Morgan, superdad: Father of five, ages 10 to 23, whose rearing has entailed some of dad's past military experience ("I'm pretty strict; I've put tracking devices on all the cars, and they know I'll read their diaries.")

Coming soon: CM's fifth album, on his new label (Sony's BNA Records), arrives Oct. 21

---

At a glance

What: Craig Morgan, with Jason Jones

When: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 13

Where: Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, 110 E. Mulberry St., Bloomington

Tickets: $26.10 to $38.50

Box office number: (866) 686-9541

---

Opener heading over to Six Strings

By Dan Craft|dcraft@pantagraph.com

Preceding Craig Morgan at his Sept. 13 Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts show will be Florida-born up-and-comer Jason Jones.

Not only will Jones precede Morgan, the young singer also will bring up the night's rear by heading over to downtown Bloomington's country mecca, Six Strings, for an after-party set to start at 10 p.m.

Jones passed through the club earlier this summer and reminisced on his Web site:

"It's a pretty cool college town and I hope we get back that way soon. It was crazy at the end of the night while we were loading out," he said.

"I heard some commotion going on behind me and when I turned around I saw six cops tackle some drunk guy right out in the street! Somebody had just a little too much booze for the night, I think!"

Or, just another Saturday night in Bloomington.

Like the headliner, the twentysomething Jason wound up in Nashville singing demos for other writers, then used that experience and exposure to lead him into more direct collaborations.

The most decisive was a demo performance for tunesmith Brett Jones (no relation), author of a dozen country hits for the likes of Confederate Railroad, Neal McCoy, Lee Ann Womack, Tracy Lawrence and Montgomery Gentry.

Through Brett Jones, Jason Jones landed a publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music, which allowed Jason to quit his day job waiting tables at a Nashville steakhouse.

Currently, Jones is still in the "opening act" phase of his career, paving the way for headliners like Morgan, Jo Dee Messina, Jeff Bates and others.

His first album, "It Ain't Just Music," is currently available only through his Web site, www.jasonjonesmusic.com