Ask Bill – June 1

1) I live just outside Milwaukee, and we have a station that claims it plays country, but they never play you or some of the older singers. I really enjoy the OLD country music, but the only way to get it is to pay for Sirius, and I don’t spend enough time in my car for that.

You’d be surprised at how many letters I receive that say basically the same thing as yours. Many stations who claim to play “Classic Country” or “The Legends of Country” don’t go back in their vaults past about 1980, and the “legends” are singers from the 80’s and 90’s. It’s true that Willie’s Roadhouse on Sirius/XM does play the older music, some from as far back as the 40’s and 50’s, and you don’t just have to listen in your car. I have a satellite receiver in my car and in my house. They even make portable models that you can move from one place to another. Maybe that’s your answer. Thanks for writing.

2) Greetings from downunder in the state of New South Wales, Australia, where I’m listening to WSM650 as I work away in my office. Tell me, Bill, with your infinite knowledge of country music, do you think there will come a day when fiddles and steel guitars return to the instrumental accompaniment, and lyrics tell the story of life’s journey with all its good and bad times?

It’s impossible to say today what might or might not be happening in music years from now, but from this vantage point it doesn’t look promising at the moment. The main problem as I see it is that the young singers and songwriters are growing up today influenced much more by rock and pop and even hip-hop music than they are by traditional country music. Even those who call themselves “country” define the genre by acts like Little Big Town, Florida Georgia Line, and Carrie Underwood…not by Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and George Jones like the generation before. When Elvis and his contemporaries came along in the fifties, the stylings of singers like Frank Sinatra and Perry Como never rose back to the top of the charts that they had dominated only a few years before. I hate to say it, but I’m afraid the same is happening with the music that you and I grew up on. Thanks for listening “way down there!” Wish I had better news.

3) I love your newsletters. Would you remind this old lady how you became “Whisperin’ Bill?” Someone asked me and I could not remember.

Thank you. A funny little songwriter/comedian named Don Bowman gave me that nickname when he used to appear regularly on my syndicated television show back in the late sixties. I was a bit sensitive to the name at first because I thought people were making fun of me. It’s turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me though. There are Bill Anderson’s or William Anderson’s in nearly every phone book in the United States, but there’s only one they call Whisperin’ Bill. I’ll be forever grateful to Don. May he rest in peace.

Thanks for all your questions, and feel free to send me any others you might have. E-mail them to askbill@billanderson.com or send them to me at P.O. Box 888, Hermitage, TN. 37076. Until next time, stay curious.

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