Jimmie Allen says his dad is the redneck of the family, the one who'd slap your hand if you tried to turn off his country radio. "My mom," he says, "she was a saint."

The "Make Me Want To" singer and his mother are still very close. In fact, she lives near him in Nashville and takes an active role in raising his son. With Mother's Day approaching, Taste of Country asked Allen what lessons she taught him.

“My mom is patient," he says, speaking plaintively as he does when talking about the women in his life. “My mom is creative and she’s a hard worker. My mom’s great at masking hard times. I remember one time we didn't have electric for like a few weeks. I didn't know it as a kid because she said, 'Hey, we're gonna camp out in the living room for a week.' We had a tent set up in the living room. We had sandwich meat and stuff in a cooler and like candles and stuff."

"I just learned how to make things work even when you don't have everything in your corner," he says. "You can still fight hard and find a way to pull through."

Allen was also very close to his grandmother before she died in 2014. In fact, that's her name across his guitar strap and that's her purple scarf in his back pocket on stage. "The women in my family are very strong," he says at 1:58 in the above video. "A lot of them were single mothers. I remember my grandmom, my mom's mom, she was a single mother of four. My grandfather, my mom's dad who I don't talk about too often — he wasn't the best husband ..."

Jimmie Allen Is "Unwell" and We're Better for It:

It's a difficult thing for the "Best Shot" hitmaker to talk about. After a half-minute pause for a tissue, he hints at what happened. "Just as a man I just feel like there's certain things you should never do. So yeah, I didn't really fool with my grandfather too much."

"I just saw the strength my grandmom had to go through all that, plus still work three or four jobs and keep food on the table for four kids."

In April Allen was introduced as the second Taste of Country RISER for 2019. His acoustic performance of his current single from Mercury Lane is "Make Me Want To." Later this month fans will be treated to an impressive cover of an artist that influenced him as much as any, except his mom and grandmom.

Watch Jimmie Allen's "Make Me Want To" RISERS Performance: 

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