True to form, John Anderson was in the studio writing and recording a batch of new songs when he got the phone call telling him he was being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The Florida native, who possesses one of the genre’s most idiosyncratic drawls, says it took weeks for the news to sink in, but he eventually absorbed the honor with a mix of satisfaction and melancholy.
“One of the main gratifications is I got to live to see it,” Anderson, 69, says. “Several of my friends were inducted posthumously.”
Among them, Toby Keith, who died in February just days before he was to learn he was being inducted alongside Anderson and the guitarist James Burton.
“Toby left us way too soon,” Anderson says. “He and I were friends and went back a long way. I remember when Toby first started, and I kind of watched him grow into the star that he became, a great writer and a great singer.”
Ahead of his official induction on Sunday during the Medallion Ceremony at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, we asked Anderson — known for Eighties hits like “Wild and Blue,” Number 85 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 200 Greatest Country Songs of All Time, and the undeniable “Swingin’” — to reflect on his induction, his friendships with greats like Merle Haggard and George Jones, and the future of the genre that his one-in-a-million voice helped define. Here’s Anderson, in his own words.
I’ve been writing songs and putting some of them down so I wouldn’t forget them. I’m considering working on a new record. But “Swingin’” was truly the big change in my career. We had already laid a real good foundation, with songs like “Old Chunk of Coal,” “1959,” and “She Just Started Liking Cheatin’ Songs.” “Wild and Blue” was a single right before “Swingin’,” and it went Number One, so we were on a pretty good roll at that time, especially for a young person back in country music.
And those songs still hold up just about as strong as they ever did. Thank goodness for the little classic country stations that play them, and for folks like Jeremy Tepper [who died in June] and the folks at SiriusXM for keeping those songs alive. We haven’t had a hit, and when I say “hit,” I mean commercial chart success, in over 20 years, and that’s ok. I’ve learned to live with that.
Today, I’m hearing several young ones and the songs are good. However, the style has changed quite a bit. It’s hard to say where it goes from here, whether it will revert back to some of the classic country stuff that we did, or whether it’ll just go on continuing to turn in its own direction.
I was so fortunate to come along when I did and get to become friends with people like Ernest Tubb, Jimmy Dickens, Minnie Pearl, and Loretta Lynn. But as surprised as I was to get in the Hall of Fame, on the other hand, I don’t feel that out of place, just on account of the people that I’ve known through the years that I became friends with. And I could almost swear I heard voices when it happened, of Ernest Tubb and Minnie Pearl and Jimmy Dickens saying, “You come on in here, boy.” It was a really warm feeling and I thought about how most of these young folks, for instance Toby, never got a chance to be friends with, say, Ernest Tubb.
When I got into the business, it was a pretty tight-knit little family, and I was glad that I got accepted by those people. Then not long after, Lord knows, I couldn’t count the shows I worked for George and Merle. Me and Merle, we would talk every couple of months, one of us would call the other one just to catch up on laughs and music talk. And it was great. So, I believe if nothing else, ol’ George and Merle would have held me a spot in the Hall if they knew I was coming.
