Country great John Anderson is to be celebrated in a special show at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry show this Saturday (August 6).
The event comes the day after the release on Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound label of the album Something Borrowed, Something New: A Tribute To John Anderson. Auerbach, who also produced the record, is among those set to perform at the concert along with Tyler Childers, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Sierra Hull, Elizabeth Cook, and others.
Childers, Hull, and Welch and Rawlings are also on the album, which also features covers from Anderson’s catalog by Brothers Osborne, Eric Church, Brent Cobb, Luke Combs, Sierra Ferrell, Jamey Johnson, Ashley McBryde, Del McCoury, John Prine, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Sturgill Simpson.
The multi-artist concert will also air live the same night as Opry Live on Circle Television and will livestream via Circle’s social media outlets. The Opry show will air in its entirety on WSM Radio, on opry.com/wsmonline.com, and SiriusXM’s Willie’s Roadhouse channels.
Auerbach produced Anderson’s most recent album, the spring 2020 release Years, with David Anderson. It was the 22nd studio set by the singer-writer from Apopka, Florida, who debuted with a self-titled album in 1980. The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee went double platinum with 1992’s Seminole Wind, which included “Straight Tequila Night,” one of his five No.1 country singles. He first hit the top with “Wild and Blue” in 1982 and repeated the feat with “Swingin’,” “Black Sheep,” and “Money In The Bank.”
Anderson has won career-long praise from fans and fellow artists alike as one of the most genuine exponents of old-school country. In 1993, John Hiatt was asked by Barney Hoskyns in Mojo about the current crop of stars the genre had to offer, and said: “You watch these performers on live TV shows and they’re completely devoid of passion. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the dust has settled. You would hope that the real artists, like John Anderson, will be the ones left standing.”
Pre-order Something Borrowed, Something New: A Tribute to John Anderson.
