Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 30, 1993 TAG: 9304300165
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
First, he was The Next Big Thing.
As a young hot-shot breaking into country music in the late 1970s, Anderson and his authentic honky-tonk sound were heralded as a breath of life for an industry otherwise overcome by lavish orchestrations and an abundance of glitz.
Sound familiar?
Anderson, who opens Sunday night for George Jones at the Salem Civic Center, helped set the stage for other traditionalists like Randy Travis and Alan Jackson to move in and lead Nashville's resurrection.
But somewhere, The Next Big Thing got lost in the shuffle.
He was banished to the Where Are They Now bin. Fodder for the trivia mill: Who sang country music's Song of the Year in 1983 and then dropped off the face of the planet?
Now, Anderson has come full circle.
His label this time around: The Comeback Kid.
After seven years without a hit, Anderson returned to the top of the country charts last year and again was being lauded - not as a fresh new face, but this time as a wrongly forgotten forefather to Nashville's own comeback story.
Yet, all the while, Anderson never really dropped out of sight. Throughout what he calls the "slow spell," he never stopped performing or recording, and his name remained familiar.
Radio continued to play many of the songs from his heyday, including "I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal," "Wild & Blue," "Black Sheep," and his Song of the Year winner, "Swingin'."
So, what happened?
Anderson blames a combination of management problems and record-label changes. Since 1987, he has gone from Warner Brothers to MCA to Universal to BNA Entertainment.
"To boil it all down, it took us awhile to get things undone, then straightened out and headed in a new direction," he told an interviewer last year.
Even so, Anderson has maintained that he was proud of the music he made during this period. He just didn't have a good support team in place to make hit records after the novelty of his initial success had faded.
Anderson, 38, first broke into country music in 1978, scoring modest success with the singles, "Girl at the End of the Bar" and "Lying Blue Eyes."
More success followed. He was nominated for a Grammy in 1982. The following year, "Swingin' " was named Song of the Year by the Country Music Association. He also won the CMA's Horizon Award for most promising new talent.
Big fans included Johnny Cash, Don Henley and George Jones. Not bad for a guy who just eight years earlier helped build the roof on the Grand Ole Opry House.
Anderson married Jamie Addkison in 1983, and they now have two daughters. They live on a 150-acre farm 50 miles outside Nashville. Jamie and one of Anderson's daughters have appeared in some of his videos.
His rebirth came with the release of the album "Seminole Wind" in 1991, which generated three hits: "Straight Tequila Night," the title track and "When It Comes to You," written by Dire Straits front-man Mark Knopfler, who also added some guitar work on the song.
The album was co-produced by Anderson and James Stroud, who has produced all of Clint Black's albums, and the team worked together again on Anderson's next album, due for release in May.
Then Anderson likely will get tagged with another label.
The Comeback Kid will no longer apply. Nor will the Next Big Thing. You only get to be The Next Big Thing once in a lifetime. Whatever it is, Anderson no doubt just hopes any new labels don't echo from the Where Are They Now file.
Maybe something like Future Legend. That would sure beat Has-Been.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB