John Anderson

Hoeing orange trees was less than ideal, and so John Anderson took a gig as a plumber’s helper. The pay was alright and the work was steady, but music pulled at Anderson’s 17-year-old heart, and you had to be 21 to play, sing, or drink in Central Florida Honky-Tonks. Anderson left his home and headed 700 miles northwest, to Nashville.

It was the summer of 1972, when songwriting legends walked the streets and pounded the pinball machines. Anderson wanted in, even if it meant living on wages that didn’t provide for essentials like bait and shotgun shells. He took a job as a construction laborer, working on a newfangled building called the Grand Ole Opry House.

He made it to the Opry stage and far beyond with a traditional voice and original music that landed him in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and with radio hits including chart-toppers “Swingin,’” “Straight Tequila Night,” “Wild and Blue,” “Black Sheep,” and “Money in the Bank.”

Before Ricky Skaggs, George Strait, and Randy Travis were household names, John Anderson was Nashville’s young and hard-charging traditionalist, devoted to extending the legacies forged by Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash.

Anderson signed with Warner Bros. in 1976, and set about making music that would gain notice from legends. At the time “Your Lying Blue Eyes” came out, Anderson was playing with house bands around the South. The song became his first Top 20 hit, and soon the name “John Anderson” on a roadside club sign was enough to fill up a parking lot with Trans Ams and pickup trucks. A string of hits ensued, with “1959,” “Chicken Truck,” “I Just Came Home To Count the Memories” and “Would You Catch a Falling Star” leading up to his breakthrough, the John Scott Sherrill-penned “Wild and Blue.” That song was the title track of an album that included Anderson’s first million-selling single, “Swingin,’” written with old friend and running partner Lionel Delmore.

Tribute: Bill Anderson’s 50th Celebration
Country’s Family Reunion Bill Anderson’s 50th Celebration
Episode 13 Featuring John Anderson
Episode 5 Featuring John Anderson
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