January 4 2021

January 4, 2021

Hi Gang:

You don’t know how glad I am to finally be able to say, “Happy New Year!”

I’m like many of you….I didn’t stay up on New Years Eve to welcome in the new year as much as I did to make sure the old one was gone! 2020 was not exactly the best of times for any of us. Hopefully with the turning of the page, the light at the end of the tunnel will soon begin shining on us all.

I hope Christmas was a merry one at your house and that Santa didn’t have any trouble fitting inside your chimney. In keeping with the craziness that was 2020, Christmas Day in Music City was not exactly the day of peace and love that we had all hoped to celebrate what with the senseless bombing downtown. The day that began with a few stray snowflakes and the promise of a white Christmas soon faded into something far less serene. Many of you messaged me with words of concern for me and my family, and I appreciated that very much. Fortunately, all of us live on the outskirts and a good distance away from where the explosion took place.

I tried to stay safe over the holidays, seeing very little of my family and friends and staying outdoors with my mask on when I did. My holiday highlight came when six of my eight grandchildren came over to bring me the picture you’ll see in our photo section. It had been eight years since there had been a picture of all of them together, and kids change a lot in that amount of time. We gathered on my front porch with a bunch of happy smiles behind our masks and elbow bumps instead of the hugs we were dying to give. As George Jones sang in an old song, “Maybe Next Christmas.”

I thank you for all the beautiful Christmas cards, text messages, and greetings of the season that you sent my way. I read and appreciated every single one. Quoting country music again, my friend Mac Wiseman said it best when he sang, “Tis Sweet To Be Remembered.”

What’s happening on the musical front in Whisperville? Not a lot other than the release of our new lyric video for “It’s A Good Day To Have A Good Day” coming soon. We will have two videos on that song then, and I hope you will check them out at www.billanderson.com and/or on YouTube and share them with your friends. When the new one is released, hopefully later this month, you can watch your screen and sing the words right along with us. Maybe it will put some warm smiles on some chilly faces during these cold winter days.

People are asking me when we are going back on tour and when we will be performing again at the Opry, and my answer to both questions is simple and the same: I don’t know. I plan to get the COVID vaccine as soon as possible, listen to the experts, and decide from there.

I hope to get back into the recording studio sometime soon because I have several new songs I’m anxious to put down. I’d love to release a new album in 2021. I have some additional songs I’ve written (or helped to write) waiting to be cut by some of my friends, and hopefully I can share some news on those before too long as well.

From the personal corner of my world, my oldest granddaughter, Rae, and her fiance, Zach, have set their wedding day. They will be getting married on Saturday August 28th here in Nashville. I’m sure I’ll have many more details to share as the time approaches.

And speaking of family, I’d like to ask you to check out the latest Bill’s Journal on our website. The new edition is a letter from my daughter-in-law, Beth, with information regarding my grandson, Gabe, and a major decision that has been made in treating the cancer he has been fighting for ten years. So many of you have prayerfully been in this fight alongside us, and we wanted you to know the latest. The next few months are going to be very intense for our family, and we’re going to need your prayers and your support and understanding more than ever. Please check out Bill’s Journal and share it with your family and friends.

Meantime, stay well and stay safe. The page on the calendar may say it’s a new year, but we’re not out of the woods yet. This virus is a mean ol’ animal with a lot of life left in it. Please continue to respect it.

Thanks a BILLion for your many kindnesses to me, and I’ll look forward to seeing you back here again next month.

From Bill

February 1, 2021

Hi Gang:

It’s hard to believe that it was one year ago this month that I played my last show on the road…in Wittenburg, Wisconsin, February 9, 2020. The night before we had performed in Wisconsin Dells, and we stayed over after the show because Wittenburg was not that far away. We didn’t count on the fact that eight inches of snow was going to fall while we slept.

We plowed through it on our tour bus the next morning, arrived in time to set up and do a sound check, but I told everybody we’d be playing to a bunch of empty seats. “Nobody is going to come out in this weather,” I said. Imagine my surprise when every seat in the theater was full. I’ve said it for years – country fans are the best fans in the world! And I miss every one of you!

We haven’t been back out on tour, but quite a few things have been going on just the same. The Grand Ole Opry has decided that they will celebrate my 60th anniversary as an Opry member on Saturday night July 17th, and here’s hoping things will be such that a whole bunch of you can come celebrate with us. Dan Rogers, the Opry manager, told me he did some research and the typical 60th anniversary gift is the diamond. I told him he could give me the diamond at Yankee Stadium!

The Country Music Hall of Fame has also confirmed with us that the Bill Anderson Exhibit, which was originally scheduled to open in 2020, is still on the books for a November 19th opening in 2021. Again, hopefully by then we’ll all feel freer to travel about, and I’ll look forward to seeing many of you at what promises to be one of the true highlights of my life and my career. The exhibit is scheduled to run until March, 2023.

With thoughts toward putting the pandemic in my rear view mirror, I had my first COVID vaccine shot January 12th, and I’m scheduled for my second February 9th. The biggest problem I ran into was all the other 75 and 80-year old drivers out getting their vaccinations on the same day. Most of them probably hadn’t driven in at least a year, and the parking lot resembled bumper cars at the county fair. Nobody could park straight, and a few could barely see over their steering wheels. I told someone I might survive the virus, but I wasn’t too sure I’d survive the ride home!

Many of you continue to reach out and ask what you can do to help get Country’s Family Reunion back on the air at RFD-TV, and my answer is nothing. Unless something unforeseen happens, I don’t think those shows will ever be on broadcast television again. The good news is that you can still stream the episodes on Country Roads TV and, of course, many of you have the DVD’s you have collected over the years. Just enjoy those…for the good times.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful responses my family and I have received in regard to the news I shared last month about my grandson, Gabe, and his upcoming bone marrow transplant. Many of you tell me you have ordered and are wearing the Team Gabe shirts, and we appreciate your support more than you know. Since we last visited, the timetable for Gabe’s procedure has been moved forward into May in order to allow time for him to have a series of radiation treatments that the doctors feel will greatly enhance his chances of never having his cancer return. Those treatments will begin Feb. 8th and could last for up to eight weeks. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks so much for your prayers and your concern.

Elsewhere in my personal world, my son, Jamey, has been called back to work at Delta Air Lines where he will begin training to pilot the 737 airplane in April. My grandson, Blake’s, high school basketball team currently has a season record of 16-3, and will soon be headed into tournament play. Last I checked, Blake is the leading rebounder on the team and #2 in scoring. Due to COVID restrictions, I’ve had to watch most of his games via streaming. I’m just sad that this is his final season.

I hope each of you will continue to stay safe, stay well, and stay in touch. And remember it’s always a good day to have a good day!!

Thanks for everything….

From Bill

December 1, 2020

Hi Gang:

It’s A Good Day To Have A Good Day….and I hope that’s exactly what you are having. Thanks for joining us for our final newsletter of this crazy year.

I hope by now you’ve heard our new song, “It’s A Good Day To Have A Good Day,” and if you haven’t seen the video, it will be coming to a screen near you within hours. It is set to debut on The Boot.com Dec. 2nd. The few who have seen it tell me they want to watch it over and over again because it “makes me feel good,” as one person told me. And if there ever was a time that we could all use a little “feel good” it’s right now.

The band and I really enjoyed recording the song and filming the video back in January, and I hope it shows. To all my band members, to our record producer and guitar player, Thomm Jutz, to Jamie Jean and his crew who filmed the recording session and added in all the good-time video clips….thanks for a great job.

A lyric video is on the way the first day of 2021. The words to the song will appear on the screen so you can have a good day singing along. I’m teasing and telling folks that I’m going to change the title then, though, and call it, “It’s A Good Year To Have A Good Year.” After 2020, we all need one!

Don’t forget to check out our “It’s A Good Day To Have A Good Day” merchandise on our website. We have everything from shirts and hoodies to cell phone covers, coffee cups, and socks. I hope you’ll order yours soon and encourage your friends to “have a good day” by displaying it.

I had some good days and nights going back to the Grand Ole Opry in October and November, but it looks as though those will be my last trips out there for awhile. For safety’s sake, the Opry has had to cut back on the number of people they allow backstage, and none of us will be permitted to bring our band members to the show for awhile. It wasn’t an easy decision for the Opry management, but it’s for the best with the COVID numbers continuing to rise in Tennessee and elsewhere. Hopefully things will reverse themselves soon and we can all go safely back to our Opry Home again. Meantime, I’ll sit by the fire and listen to the show just like you.

I also just learned that Country’s Family Reunion will discontinue airing on RFD-TV at the end of December. We had a great run there for 23-years (very few shows have ever lasted that long), and I appreciate more than you know your watching the programs and letting me know how much you enjoyed them. The shows will continue to air on Country Road TV and possibly in other places, so they won’t be disappearing completely. But they will no longer be on RFD.

Along with many of you, I was extremely saddened by the news of Opry member Hal Ketchum’s passing on Nov. 23rd. Hal and I wrote some songs together, including one of my favorites called, “The Paper,” which I recorded and released in my “Fine Wine” album some years back. Hal had one of the most uniquely creative minds that I’ve ever been around. I send my condolences to his wife and family.

Also, my former sound engineer, songwriting buddy, and friend to many of our members, Bobby Tomberlin, lost his mother last week. Our condolences to Bobby and his dad as well.

I hope each of you had a great Thanksgiving in spite of the restrictions imposed on us all by the coronavirus. I spent a quiet day at home, reading with appreciation your many kind messages, and stuffing my face with turkey, dressing, and all the trimmings. I missed our traditional big family gathering, but we’re already making plans for all of us to be together next year. How’s that for positive thinking?

Speaking of family, my grandson, Blake, began his senior year of high school basketball last month, and in his team’s first game he scored 21 points and pulled down 17 rebounds. I know he won’t do that in every game, and right now because of COVID they might not even play many more, but what a way to start the season! Granddaughter Hallie, who is twelve, has begun trying her hand at writing songs, and her early efforts are better than mine were when I was her age. And Granddaughter Caroline is preparing to go to work in the box office selling tickets to the Christmas events at the Opryland Hotel. I love having all my kids and grandkids so close now. I just hope they all stick around.

In closing, I wish for each of you a very Merry Christmas, and above all a safe and healthy one. May Santa’s sleigh be loaded down with vaccines that will help us put this dreaded virus in our rear view mirrors. And may 2021 truly be a Happy New Year for us all.

Thanks a BILLion for everything, and God bless.

From Bill

November 3, 2020

Hi Gang:
Thanks for checking out our November newsletter, and thanks so much for all the birthday cards, calls, Facebook posts and online greetings on November 1st. I read and appreciated every single one. With my birthday being on a Sunday, I didn’t expect nearly the number of texts and phone calls that I received, so it was a pleasant surprise. Thanks for them all.

Nobody over thirty relishes the thought of getting older, but I had a great day. All three of my children and six of my grandkids came over to my house for a weiner roast in the back yard and some outdoor family time on my deck. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

October was quite the month as well with my getting to go back onstage at the Grand Ole Opry on the 17th and having a new single record released on the 30th. I wasn’t sure I could find my way back to the Opry House after having been away for seven months, but fortunately my car remembered how to get there. It was different with no one in the halls backstage and no socializing with the other acts on the show (the evening even started with my band members and I in separate dressing rooms), but it was still the Opry and good to be “back home.”

Quite a few of you have written and said some nice things about the new song I sang that night called, “Someday It’ll All Make Sense,” and I appreciate your kind words very much. The song seems to speak to folks in a personal way, just as it spoke to me when Bobby Tomberlin and Ryan Larkins and I were writing it. In answer to lots of your questions, yes I do plan to record it as soon as the studios open back up and I can safely get into one.

Beginning this week the Opry is resuming its regular two-hour shows on both Friday and Saturday nights with live audiences of approximately 1,000 people. I am scheduled to appear on Friday the 6th and Saturday the 14th and 21st. I hope lots of you will be tuned in.

Our new record, “It’s A Good Day To Have A Good Day,” has been released on all the modern day musical platforms, and I hope you’ll be checking it out soon. This is the song we were opening our road shows with last year, and right now just seemed like a good time to release a song with an upbeat, positive message. We have a lyric video in the works as well as a live video featuring all my band members that was filmed at the recording session back in February. Stay tuned for news as to when those will be available.

We also have some t-shirts, sweatshirts, coffee mugs, masks, socks, and smart phone covers in our online store, with the “It’s A Good Day To Have A Good Day” logo printed on them. Click on the Shop or Music sections of our website to see the different items and colors you can order. With what we’ve been through this year, we need some good days, and I you’ll help us spread that message.

Speaking of spreading a message, let me call your attention to the new Bill’s Journal post which went online today. If you’re looking for a special Christmas or birthday gift for a country music fan, go to Bill’s Journal and check out what we are offering. I think you might find it interesting.

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to some more members of our country music family last month with the passing of the great Texas singer, Johnny Bush, and former Opry member, Margie Bowes. Johnny recorded one of the great versions of “City Lights” years ago, while Margie and I were tour mates on the first big package show tour I ever worked ‘way back in 1959. I’ll never forget the two of us driving Lonzo & Oscar’s big new Lincoln Town Car from Nashville to Des Moines to join the tour, and Margie’s midnight screams when I ran the car into an eight-point buck deer and killed him up in Montana a few nights later. Margie and Johnny, along with singer/songwriter, Billy Joe Shaver, who also passed away last week, will be missed.

Have a great November…a wonderful Thanksgiving no matter how or where you spend it…and we’ll see you back here in December. Stay well…stay safe…and thanks a BILL-ion for everything.

January 4, 2021

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