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Jeff Foxworthy has gained fame by talking about his own experiences.

Jeff Foxworthy isn't the man everyone thinks he is.

Sure, the lanky Southerner is legitimately down-home and friendly, and he definitely knows how to tell a joke.

Yet, in conversation Foxworthy is more than funny -- he is also reflective and insightful.

Foxworthy, who infuses his comedy routines with insights about everyday life, patterns himself in the style of comedians like Bill Cosby, finding humor in dating, marriage, kids and aging. And, of course, all the oddball things people do that he says make us all "rednecks."

His success is legendary. A grueling 48-week-a-year touring schedule catapulted him from the comedy club circuit to playing concerts. And though he's scaled back his appearances to 125 dates a year, he keeps busy with charity causes, writing best-selling books and spending time with his family.

He is the largest-selling comedy recording artist in history, and his CDs have earned him three Grammy Award nominations.

Foxworthy will appear Friday night at the Topeka Performing Arts Center. During a recent phone interview with The Mag he spoke about his life as a stand-up comic.

Is your schedule as tough as it was 10 years ago?

I was really blessed early on when things were like that. That was how you got good was by doing it every evening. But about the time things popped and we went from comedy clubs to doing concerts, then we started having babies so it worked out great. Instead of doing 250-seat clubs six nights in a row, I was in a 3,000-seat theater for one night. So now I do about 100 to 125 shows a year. But compared to 500 I feel like I'm retired.

You switched careers to become a stand-up comic. Why?

I was working at IBM. I did have to wear a suit but I carried a tool bag every day. I fixed the hardware on the mainframe computers. Every business has one person who is the funny person at work and I was that guy. And co-workers were encouraging me to go down to the comedy club ... and finally I took them up on it. I went down and they were having a contest for working comedians -- not an amateur night thing -- and I got in the contest and I won. And I had no idea what I was doing and I was scared to death. But I knew two minutes into it that I loved it.

I worked with a lot of guys that sat around the lunchroom and talked about how they wished they had done this or that and I thought, "Here I've found something I love doing ... and I didn't want to be sitting there when I was 60 going I wish I'd tried this." I quit IBM on Dec. 31, 1984, and I got in my car and drove to do a show in Birmingham, Ala., that New Year's Eve. ... Now I don't think I'm going to have to go back and ask for my old job back.

How supportive has your wife been in your career choice?

My wife was in the club the first night I went on stage. She was an actress in Atlanta and she went down to root for a friend who was in the contest. Then a few weeks later she was back and someone introduced us. That was on a Tuesday and I asked her out and we went out on Saturday and I kind of moved in with her on Monday. It was one of those weird things -- I knew an hour into the date that I was going to marry her.

She had a much better handle on the business than I did. I didn't come from a family where anyone had done something like this. She was the one telling me I should do it. I can remember telling my parents that I was quitting my job and my mother's like, "What is wrong with you? Are you on drugs?" Of course, the first time I was on Johnny Carson my mother was like, "You know, you just wasted all those years at IBM," and that's not quite the way I remember the conversation. (He laughs.)

Why is your "redneck" humor so successful?

The reason it became what it became was it worked everywhere. Once you get 10 or 15 minutes from any city, people are the same. The scenery and accents change but the people don't. And it was never meant as an insult. I started doing it because I'd been called that all my life and I didn't mind that, but I'm not in it alone. It included so many people. If you hadn't done some of those things, then one of your relatives had. It was based in truth and that's why it worked.

All I've ever tried to do is talk about my life. In the beginning it was dating, then being a newlywed, and being on the road, being a new father, turning 40 and talking about the things I thought I'd know by then that I didn't. It's all a snapshot of me.

Do you have a career highlight?

I'd say it was being on Johnny Carson for the first time. Back when I started doing standup that was it for a comic. You didn't have 100 cable channels. Most people that got there had been doing it for 10 years. But you knew that you were good because it was real hard to get on. I have a picture over my desk of me sitting in the chair talking to Johnny and he's got his head back and he's laughing. I felt like if the bottom ever fell out I could whip that picture out and say, "Here, I was a comedian at one time."

You're hosting the TNN Music City News Awards for the third year. Can you really prepare for that?

It's funny because on every show it's scripted out to the second and invariably it always goes in the trash can in five minutes because someone's 40-second acceptance speech became seven minutes. But that's the part of the job I like, it's like walking a highwire to see if you can make it work out. That's the part people never see.

What do you want the audience to get from a Jeff Foxworthy show?

I want people to laugh for two hours. If I had to add anything extra to that I would like some goodness to leak through. There's so much hard stuff thrown at people these days. I just think people are capable of enjoying life without slamming each other and without being filthy -- boy, do I sound like an old man. (He laughs again.) The world has changed so much in 20 years ... and I think people are realizing that not all of this is necessarily good ... and that it's OK to not be hip or cool or cutting-edge. What's important is just family and friends and trying to have a normal life.

-- The Mag's phone message number is 832-7146. Send e-mail to jbiles@ljworld.com.

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