Country Music Hall of Famer, Grand Ole Opry member and songwriting legend, Bill Anderson, will be celebrated in a new exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2020, aimed at entertaining and enlightening country music audiences and interpreting the ever-evolving story of the music and the people who make it.
On Nov. 20, 2020, the museum will open a special exhibition looking at the life of Anderson. Known for his breathy, conversational vocal style, “Whisperin’ Bill” Anderson has logged 37 Top Ten hits as a recording artist. Anderson has earned more than 50 BMI awards for songwriting. His first success came in 1958, when he wrote “City Lights,” a #1 single for Country Music Hall of Fame member Ray Price. Anderson’s songs have been recorded by James Brown, Kenny Chesney, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin, and hundreds of others, among them Hall of Fame members the Louvin Brothers, Roger Miller, Jim Reeves, Connie Smith, George Strait, Porter Wagoner and Kitty Wells. In 2005, Anderson and Jon Randall Stewart wrote “Whiskey Lullaby,” recorded by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss. It was CMA Song of the Year, and in 2007, Anderson won the CMA and ACM Song of the Year awards for “Give It Away,” written with Buddy Cannon and Jamey Johnson and recorded by Strait. A Grand Ole Opry member since 1961, Anderson entered the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975, the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2002 and the New York-based Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.
“I grew up dreaming of the day they’d put my ball glove into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but realized many years ago that wasn’t going to happen. But now, knowing that my guitar and maybe a rhinestone suit or two will be put into an exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, more than makes up for it. When our Hall does an exhibit, they really do it up right. I am thrilled to know that I am about to be a small part of their incredible legacy,” Anderson shared.
