“I’m just sitting here, trying to figure out how a city that’s recovering from a flood can be in a drought,” said Country Music Hall of Famer Bill Anderson, talking from home.
After more than a half century of writing songs, Anderson is used to examining life’s ironies. He lives out some of those ironies as well. Without a technically strong singing voice he has become one of country music’s most recognizable and respected performers and a regular highlight-maker at the Grand Ole Opry. And in a largely youth-dominated music industry, he retains a dominant songwriting presence.
In the “What have you done?” category, he can cite recordings of his songs by Ray Price, Waylon Jennings, James Brown, Porter Wagoner, Aretha Franklin, Lawrence Welk and hundreds of others. In the “What have you done lately?” category, he can answer with songs recorded by Sugarland, George Strait, Brad Paisley and many more. His new album, Songwriter, features collaborations with Paisley, Jon Randall, Joshua Ragsdale and others decades his junior.
And though he draws from experience, he’s not one to repeat himself.
“Co-writing has helped, particularly melody-wise,” said Anderson, who will appear Friday morning, July 2, at 9:15 a.m. on WSM AM 650‘s Coffee, Country & Cody show and will star on the Opry Friday and Saturday night. “When you’re writing with somebody else, it goes a long ways towards helping to keep it fresh. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get writer’s block, like everybody else. There are days I can’t rhyme ‘moon’ and ‘spoon.’ Just ’cause you’ve done it for a long time doesn’t mean they give you a card that says, ‘You’re excused from writer’s block.’ Some days, you just sit there and co-stare.”
Songwriter is filled with compositions that emerged from days thankfully free of co-stares. “It Ain’t My Job To Tote Your Monkey” is an anti-hang-up romp written with Rivers Rutherford and Rex Schnelle. “Papaw’s Sunday Boots” is a tear-jerking co-write with young writer Joshua Ragsdale, and “Good Time Gettin’ Here” finds Anderson writing with the Grascals’ Jamie Johnson and producer Buddy Cannon. “I’m not sure where I’ve been or where I am or where I’m going, but I sure had a good time gettin’ here,” he sings in the latter.
“We started out with the idea that the album would be called Good Time Gettin’ Here, and that we’d have a picture on the cover of me getting out of a limo in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame,” he said. “I was going to do songs that were lighthearted and funny. Once we got five or six of those recorded, I started feeling like a one-trick pony. It was like, ‘That’s cute, what else you got?’ I decided to level it out a little bit.”
And so ballads such as “If Anything Ever Happened To You” and “Papaw’s Sunday Boots” entered the picture.
“With ‘Papaw’s Sunday Boots,’ Josh Ragsdale had the idea and I think the song was pretty close to him, personally,” Anderson said. “It brought back memories to me of my own grandfather. You’d write a line, wipe the tear away and then write another line.”
Tears aside, Anderson tends to want to enjoy himself when working, and he sometimes brings up Jack Clement’s assertion that music people are in the fun business: “If we’re not having fun, we’re not doing our job.” Recently, he was having a co-staring session with Jamey Johnson (the drawling, deep-voiced country singer, not the Grascals member) and producer Buddy Cannon and they determined it might be best to break and eat lunch. So they went to a little Mexican restaurant, talked, laughed and re-entered the fun business.
“After lunch, we came back to the office and the song almost wrote itself,” he said. “And, not to jinx it, but George Strait’s got it now.”
Reach Peter Cooper at 615-259-8220 or pcooper@tennessean.com.
IF YOU GO
- What: Country Music Hall of Famer Bill Anderson
When and where: On Bill Cody’s WSM 650 AM radio show Friday morning (July 2) around 9:15, and on the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m.
Tickets: $42-$54, available through www.opry.com
Info: www.billanderson.com