"Let 'er fly, boys. Anywhere," John Anderson says, his GIMME BACK MY BULLETS favored Remington .20 gauge shotgun at the ready on a COCKED AND LOADED, PERENNIAL COUNTRY STAR windy, unseasonably warm February day at Timberline, JOHN ANDERSON SHOOTS AGAIN FOR THE CHARTS the singer /songwriter's backwoods retreat. IT Seconds BY RAY WADDELL. earlier, Anderson's longtime manager /agent Bobby PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID McCLIST Roberts had meticulously placed two clay targets on the skeet shooter. As he triggered the release, one skeet soared into the distance while the other careened toward Anderson, thudding into his shoulder. If The veteran singer shrugged off the impact, stayed focused and expertly disintegrated the solo target. ¶ The scene serves as an apt metaphor for Anderson's 30 -year career on the fringe of Music Row, and as a performer who demonstrates a remarkable ability to deflect misses and absolutely nail opportunities. The Apopka, Fla., native first came to Nashville in the late '70s with little more than a dream and a voice that described as sounding "like he's singing through a volume pedal." ir "Actually, when I first came to Nashville, I just wanted to sing and play for a living," Anderson says over the country ham special at Smithville's Rose Garden diner. "I always said if I could just pay rent, anything above that would be a bonus." Within two weeks of arriving in Nashville, radio for several years," Rich says. "I wanted Anderson was singing and playing at the city's to hear him singing again, simple as that. He's Lower Broadway honky -tonks, developing as good, or maybe better, than he ever was, and one of country's most distinct vocal deliver- many of my artist friends consider him a major ies. He signed to Warner Bros. in 1979, where influence on their music, as do I." a lengthy string of hits (20 Billboard top 10 Driving his Chevy Silverado through the singles) followed, beginning with "1959" in winding backroads of Smithville, where An- 1981; dating back to the pre- Nielsen Sound - derson has lived for nearly three decades, this Scan era, Anderson's handlers estimate he's master of twang seems to take it all in stride. sold more than 10 million records. Anderson "The new record is exciting just because it's became one of country's premier hitmakers a new record. We haven't had one in so long of the '80s with such staples as "Your Lyin' and for a while was wondering what to do Blue Eyes," the gold-certified "" about getting a new record. about (his first chart -topper in 1982) and the 1983 answered all of our questions. I'm thankful mega -hit "Swingin'," recently named No. 30 to him for that," Anderson says. on the list of top jukebox hits of all time by The irony of returning to Warner with a hot- the Amusement and Music Operators Assn. shot producer is not lost on Anderson, who was After a dry spell, Anderson stormed back once the label's young gun himself. "We did a to the airwaves in the early '90s with hits like lot of good business with Warner in the early

"," "I Wish I Could days," he says. "Not only did I get hits, but back Have Been There" and the Florida Everglades then I got paid for most of them, I believe." anthem " "; the album of the "Easy Money" is Anderson's 27th album, same name has sold double -platinum. counting repackages, and his first since "No- Along the way, Anderson has made the body's Got It All" on Sony in 2000, a brilliantly major -label rounds, with stops on Warner, constructed album that Roberts describes as MCA, Capitol, BNA, Mercury, Sony and now "barely released" by the label. Anderson ad- Warner Bros. again for a new release that mits his frustration at such an artistic effort many feel will give the artist an improbable not reaching its commercial potential. third run at mainstream success. "Yeah, it's going to be frustrating when you "Easy Money" streets May 15 on Raybaw Rec- cut a record like that, put your heart and soul ords /Warner Bros., propelled by an energetic in it, then it seems to go over like a lead bal- infusion from one of contemporar} country's loon. You feel like it's good, but I don't guess hottest players, John Rich, who produced the a person will ever know because it never got album and co -wrote many of the songs with An- the chance to prove itself, really," he says. derson. An unabashed J.A. disciple, Rich turned "Not enough people heard it to say whether what started out as a songwriting collaboration it was good or bad." into a full -blown album project, with all the con- Still, Anderson absorbed the frustration siderable juice behind it Rich can muster. much as he did that clay target back in "What inspired me to work on this project Smithville. "You can get as frustrated as you is the mere fact that John Anderson is one of want, and you can rant and rave and stomp the greatest country singers in the history of around the living room in front of your wife , and he has been absent from and kids and make them miserable. »>

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