Today I Heard: Bill Anderson
A broad free flowing discussion about the career of the legendary Whisperin' Bill Anderson filtered through four early career albums.
BTW, the letters to the editor/ Q and A deadline is fast approaching. Get your letters in before February 15th!
Joe
January and February are slower times for music so it's a great opportunity to focus on older music.
Ironically, as I started jotting down the names of artists I've listened to these past couple months, I realized that they all started with the letter B. So be it. Initially, the plan was to talk about Bill Anderson, Brett Eldredge, Bob Wills, and Brenda Lee. However, as I started with some scattered thoughts on Whisperin' Bill, it ballooned. Excessively so.
Bill Anderson: Perhaps you may know Bill Anderson more as a songwriter and the cheerful old guy in all of those country music videos online. We tend to forget what a presence he was in his more youthful days. He is really an underrated artistic force in country music. Not just as a writer who wrote chart topping songs in a number of decades. Anderson was a force as a singer as well. Country artists were cranking albums at a thick pace in the early 1960s. Whisperin’ Bill took part and embarked on a red hot streak of albums. Because of the breakneck pace of releases, it is not unsurprising for artists in that era to have a few duds. Anderson is an exception. All of the albums from this five year span that I’ve listened to recently were excellent.
The albums all blur into one another. They were released in quick succession featuring essentially the same musical style, so the differences are nuanced and honestly, I get speculative at points.
Our first album, his debut, is from 1962.
1. Bill Anderson Sings Country Heart Songs
This was very early on in the concept album era. In fact, country music did not embrace the concept album, especially in its most artistic sense, until the 1970s with Willie Nelson being viewed as the progenitor of the artform within country. However, there was a slight shift occurring during this period of time.
A brief tangent by way of explanation. If Frank Sinatra's acclaimed In The Wee Small Hours is considered to be the first concept album, then the follow up one year later of Songs For Swinging Lovers should not be batted away to the side as a return to the old ways. Although it didn't have the novelty of what came immediately before, this shared a common core. Instead of a strict artistic concept, this was simply a themed record. Still much more than a mere collection of songs.
The difference is fairly self-explanatory. A concept record is dedicated to telling a singular story. There is a progression throughout the project and very often it is a deeply personal story. Of course, exceptions abound. Conversely, a themed project is simply an album that has one central idea that is its primary focus. Sinatra did both of these in back-to-back years. (I don’t mean to say that Frank Sinatra invented the themed record. For example, Gospel records existed in abundance and you can't get much more thematic then that. I just thought the contrast with the concept record of the year previous was demonstrative.)
Although the more experimental concept did not reach country music for another twenty years, the themed record was certainly creeping its way in by the turn of the decade. This was novel in country.
The nature of the music scene at the time was heavily singles based. Hits provided the advertisement to audiences that went on to buy records. The idea of having three or four hit songs on one album was viewed as a waste. Themes and ideas were not the modus operandi of formulating an album.If you had three big songs, put each one on its own album with some filler, or at least on its own side of a vinyl. This way you can maximize sales. This strategy and the need for constant sales growth played a large part in the sheer volume of records put out in those years. These themed projects either were a way of masking this effort or were a step towards more artistic presence in music making. ( Perhaps a critical step in the album eventually becoming its own mode of artistic expression?) I do not have enough background or understanding of early 1960s music biz to be able to make that call. It was merely a thought that crossed my mind when I listened to this record and noted its differences from other music in the era.
As I did research on this album, I found out a reason why it felt so different. This album by Anderson was a compilation album which took a few of his singles that had been released over the previous three years and put them all onto one album to serve as a debut album. This was a strategy I knew nothing of until I went about researching for this very piece. It might explain why this album was more thematic as it was not a typical release.
Broad contexts aside, this record is chock full of heartfelt country songs. Standouts are the classic Po' Folks and the cosmopolitan City Lights. One thing I love about how the record starts is the sheer contrast between the first two songs. Po' Folks is presenting the most country fried side of Bill Anderson. It kicks off with a big loud blast of harmonica, and then immediately after that song ends, it pivots into City Lights which unsurprisingly has a much more pop forward smooth arrangement with its choirs, harmonies, and orchestral tones. Even at this early stage of his career, Anderson, or at the very least Owen Bradley (his producer), is keenly aware of the middle ground trying to be struck by both by the industry as well as Anderson who was one of the fresh faces on the scene. This was Anderson's introduction to the scene, so it was critical that it landed its targets.
Obviously, Anderson’s rendition of Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain is a must listen to, but there are also deeper cuts that are excellent. It doesn't entirely stick to the theme tightly, but that didn’t bother me.
Mama Sang A Song was his first ever country number one single. It's quite a trip. Mixes Christian hymns, talk singing recitation, recollection of a poor youth, love for his mother, so many choirs. There's a lot there. Very deserving to hit number one. A complete 180 from what qualifies as a hit nowadays. Pure storytelling. You see how his soft whisper like tone was a great fit for a storytelling focused song.
As we progress further throughout this analysis of these records, a lot of the album cuts will begin to flow into one another. The basic sound of country music did not change a tremendous amount from 1962 to 1966, so sonically we shouldn't expect these records to have much evolution.
2. Still (1963)
This sort of is also Bill's debut. With his first album being a compilation album, this is sometimes called his debut because it was his first "studio" album. I.e. It followed the recording model discussed above.
Again, chock full of fantastic songs and stylistically not tremendously different from the prior record, albeit less tightly bound to any particular theme.
The title track is written by Bill himself, which was generally unusual except for Bill (and a few others) who often had three to five songs per record that were solo writes. From what I understand of the time, the expectation of an artist to write his/her own songs was not really a thing. Perhaps crude, but the purpose of a Nashville based artist was to come into the studio and play the material presented in front of you to the best of their God given abilities. Didn’t matter whether that was the fellow playing guitar or the fellow playing his own vocal chords. Both were simply a part of the Nashville assembly line. I exaggerate, but only slightly.
It can be hard for modern audiences to wrap their minds around just how minimal a measure of control artists had over the basic elements of style and accompaniment. It was much less than even the meager amount afforded to modern label signed artists. The primary differences between artists was mostly their facial features and vocals. Chet Atkins had a house style that was applied with every single one of his artists, and Owen Bradley was not all that different. Admittedly, each of them aimed to bring out the music as best as possible, but the focus was on the execution of the music over the unique sound for each artist. Bradley and the A- Team played all day long and streams of singers would come into the booth for a session only to be replaced with another face a couple hours later. Very little changed musically between artists. The writing was often no different. There were professional songwriters the same as any other component of song making.
Luckily, the song choices here fit Anderson well. Most of them are sung from a first person perspective which seamlessly fits with his trademark intimate vocal style. Obviously, all of the stories detailed herein could not have taken place to him personally, but this isn't an autobiography. His job is to sell the material with the proper delivery and emotions. In spite of youthful inexperience, he does a great job presenting both the emotional passionate songs as well as this intimate and personal perspective to every song.
Standouts where I find this ability to be utilized most excellently are on the country marching band crossover Little Band Of Gold, the rustic banjo driven Get A Little Dirt On Your Hands, or the haunting interplay between melody and harmony on the closer I Wish It Was Mine.
Looking at these three songs shows you the balancing act being performed by Anderson. Selling out completely in a pop direction was not some unknown concept in the good ol days that Grandpa told you about. I dearly love vast amounts of Eddie Arnold’s discography, but I’m not going to try and fool myself into thinking that his mid-career renaissance was attributable to anything aside from fashioning himself as country music's crooner king. If you need to squint to see a difference between your music and a Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra, it is a pretty tenuous argument to say that you haven’t sold out to pop. In Anderson’s case, the pop/city influence was tempered, but still heavily drawn from. This balance was ideal for an audience belonging to a generation that (as discussed on previous post) was only one generation off of the farms. Their musical choices reflected the dichotomy of the cosmopolitan existence and the rural past.
3. Bright Lights And Country Music (1965)
Fast forward a couple of years later, and Anderson’s level of fame has grown. At this point, he is touring extensively with his own backing band. He convinced the label to ditch the A-Team and bring the Po’ Boys into the studio. Speculatively, this might explain why this album goes for a much more up-tempo style which is well suited for live shows. This emphasis on the live show experience would also explain why so many covers on the record (We’re gonna need to talk about covers in this era of country music because literally everyone covered literally everyone else. Because of that, it doesn’t have the same meaning that covers in the modern age do. We’re already running long, so I’ll save it for a different time.)
Although trends in Nashville have not changed a ton over these past three years, out in California things changed. Country music and rock ‘n’ roll do have sufficient air between them that they are not the same genre, but they are definitely kissing cousins. Especially early on with artists like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis really demonstrating just how blurry the lines between country, rockabilly, and rock ‘n’ roll really were. Nashville intentionally moved towards a more adult pop style as a means of creating space in the market share. (That was only one of a host of complex reasons. It is the one we are working with primarily because it explains the clean cut existence of Nashville artists like Anderson thriving literally during Beatle-Mania.)
However, out in California, the Bakersfield scene was more willing to allow the natural commonalities between the genres come to the forefront. Take some old Hank Williams honky-tonk, jack it up to eleven, and add some electric guitar. There are many similarities. Of course twin fiddles and steel guitar were essential components of Bakersfield country not found in rockabilly or rock ‘n’ roll. However, relative to what Nashville was producing under the umbrella of country music, Bakersfield was the veritable country rock of its day.
By 1965, even with the molasses-like pace of shifting trends in Nashville, there was a small but sufficient cross-pollination between the scenes. It wasn’t so odd. Bakersfield was simply a continuity of the remnants of that 1950s honky-tonk that had been so popular only a decade prior. Many artists, Ray Price for example, still dabbled in both the pop crooner stuff and or rough and tumble honky took to great success. This album was Anderson’s opportunity to show that he also could take part in a good old-fashioned throwdown. Or at least the studio thought it would be a smart pivot. Stripped back with a focus on honky-tonk, the album is a testament to Anderson’s versatility.
We’ve got songs extolling the honky-tonk life on Bright Lights And Country Music (extremely evocative of Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud Loud Music). We’ve got reflective cheerful reflections on moonshining in Mountain Dew. We even have a trucking song, I believe to be Anderson’s first, and it occurs relatively early on in the sub genre of truck driving country music. Yes, it is a cover of the Buck Owen’s classic Truck Drivin' Man, but that doesn’t take away from Bill and his team being early on the trucking song trend that would sweep through Nashville in the upcoming decade.
One aspect in vocal delivery, which we’ve already identified as being Anderson’s biggest strength is his talk-sing delivery. This conversational talking style often sounds hokey and cheesy, but if and when done perfectly can be deeply evocative. In the tearjerker ballad Golden Guitar, it is precisely that fine execution of this technique which elevates the song. Anderson returns to this vocal technique frequently, but this is one of the best examples thus far.
And lastly, the fourth album.
4. I Love You Drops (1966)
The last album we look at in this hot streak, I Love You Drops is a return to a more pop friendly approach. It retains the simple charm that was de rigueur in that time and has a slightly more updated production style compared to the throwback Bright Lights And Country Music. At this point personally, my brain has melted. All of these album cuts have flown into one another. However, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t individually good. The flaws only arise because I’ve mushed them all together by binge listening to a chunk of discography. If you experienced this as just an album, rest assured there would be any number of standout songs. I personally enjoyed When Liking Turns To Loving, Next Time You're In Tulsa, and of course, the cover of I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. Do these stand out more than others? Eh. But I like them so I'm pointing them out for y'all.
Honestly, it's been a struggle conveying this dichotomy between city and country styled music re Whisperin’ Bill Anderson's output. When an artist doesn't fit into a clear bracket, it can be tougher to convey in writing. Context on pop music of the era helps illustrate the genre conversation. The pop music of the 1950s was heavily influenced by orchestral music, and although that was already waning in the early 1960s, that golden age pop style was still wildly popular. That may surprise you. Depends on what you think of when you hear the year 1966. Just because this record took place when teenagers went bananas over the Beatles and your favorite classic rock bands were getting started doesn't mean other kinds of music weren't popular especially among slightly older audiences.
Anderson and his producers didn't lean fully into the pop sounds popular at the time. His albums never had those big string sections like Eddie Arnold or Jim Reeves. On the other hand, he didn't sound quite as country as the other bookends of artists like Ernest Tubb (still cranking out music during this era). He falls in the middle. His vocals were more straightforward country folk than crooner pop. His songwriting and storytelling was very country inspired, and he did have more country instrumentation than the most overt pop acts. On the other hand, he was not averse to heavy use of smooth choirs and pop harmonies as well as orchestral flair in the arrangements, and that made his output a balanced middle ground for the era. I think that is the key to his appeal. It wasn't a static era, but the minor tweaks and shifts between records was enough to subtly align with whatever dynamics resonated at the moment of release. Of course, commercial savviness doesn't explain the whole picture. Anderson projected sincerity and masterfully presented stories and emotion. He had versatility. He had a good songwriting acumen and team behind him. That was just as valuable as a keen marketing team and a crack producer with his finger on the pulse of the audience.
All this was available in theory to many talented artists, but one key differentiator is how right off the bat, they quickly discovered who Bill was as an artist. We see this clearly in this album analysis with the early albums feeling equally as Bill Anderson as the mayer ones. It certainly helped that the trends of the era aligned with his strengths, with its focus on emotive vocals, down to earth songwriting, and pristine delicate arrangement. Certainly, understanding the culture helps, but it isn't going to work if you aren't cut out for it. Bill's 1978 disco country pop song sounds dreadful, not just because it’s disco, but because he doesn’t sound like he belongs there. Unlike many others, it seems that he was self-aware enough to realize when things didn’t fit. In fact, he explained one of the reasons why he stopped songwriting in the 80s was because his writing didn’t suit the style of country pop that was popular at the time.
Thankfully that was only a temporary pause, and by the turn of the century, songs like Steve Wariner's Two Teardrops, Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss' Whiskey Lullaby, and George Strait's Give It Away showed his continued relevance into the 21st century.
One interesting thing that happened after listening to a ton of Bill Anderson in preparation for this piece is that I was struck by how familiar his talk singing style felt. I realized that the Kenny Chesney song A Lot Of Things Different felt very evocative of the style. I thought perhaps a nice way to cap off this piece would be to talk about how the influence of Anderson is felt even among current day country artists. And then I realized that it’s actually Kenny Chesney covering a Bill Anderson song off his 2000 album. So it still demonstrates the point, just in a very different way.
Thanks for sticking this out all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed, learned something, and gave Whisperin’ Bill a shot.
Joe
PS. As stated in the beginning of the piece, the deadline for the Letters To The Editor post is February 15th. Reach out to me at todayiheardblog@gmail.com. I welcome your feedback!