Trace Adkins is marking 30 years in country music this week with two shows at the Ryman Auditorium, a milestone that finds him looking back at the career that began when he signed with Capitol Records in January 1996. He said he was headed to Home Depot a week before the Ryman dates because he needed more chain for a chandelier he was hanging, a small snapshot of the life behind a performer whose name has been in country music for decades.

Adkins said the anniversary has him thinking about the first stretch of his career, when his debut single, “There’s a Girl in Texas,” made the top 20, “Every Light in the House” climbed into the top five and “(This Ain’t) No Thinkin’ Thing” went to number one. “Oh, well, you know, dream come true,” he said of the early run, before adding that he thought, “Here we go,” and believed at the time that success would only keep moving in that direction.

It did. He has sold 12 million albums, drawn more than 2 billion streams and collected multiple Grammy nominations, with songs including “You’re Gonna Miss This,” “Ladies Love Country Boys,” “Chrome,” “Songs About Me” and “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” filling out the catalog that has kept him on the road. The Ryman shows are part of that anniversary run, and Jason Crabb is scheduled to join him on May 22, followed by Carolyn Dawn Johnson on May 23.

For Adkins, the moment is as much about perspective as nostalgia. The Tennessean’s Brad About You entertainment column once described him as a new tower of singing power, and Adkins said he would tell his younger self to be patient. “I wanted it to stay on that trajectory and that was unrealistic,” he said, reflecting on how quickly the first successes gave way to the harder work of sustaining a career.

He said the anniversary shows are built as a greatest-hits set, not a showcase for spectacle. “I do a greatest hit show,” he said. “I want to give the fans what they know, what they want to hear.” He added that he does not want anyone leaving wishing he had played one of the songs that made him famous. “I don’t want them to leave going, ‘I wish he would have done that hit,’” he said.

That stripped-down approach fits the way he prepares now. Adkins said his pre-show routine has been reduced to coffee. He said he used to smoke Marlboros before going on stage, but no longer does. “So now it’s just a cup of coffee and let’s go,” he said. He also said he does not spend much time on vocal drills. “I hear people that do the vocal warm-ups and the scales and everything before they go out. I’ve never been that guy. I just go out, kick off and run down the field,” he said.

Even after all these years, the Ryman still gets to him. Adkins said he still feels nerves performing there and at the Grand Ole Opry, where he has been a member since 2003. Little Jimmy Dickens stood on a stepladder to invite him into the Opry that year, and Ronnie Milsap later formally inducted him. For a singer whose biggest hits have made him a fixture of country radio, the unease is a reminder that the old rooms still carry weight.

That is what makes the Ryman dates more than a victory lap. Adkins is not only revisiting the songs that made him famous; he is standing in the same places where that fame was tested, and saying plainly that he still feels the pressure. The hits are the point, but the nervousness is what keeps the show honest.