Lynn Anderson, Country Star Behind 'Rose Garden,' Dies at 67
By Chuck Dauphin, Nashville | July 31, 2015 3:24 PM EDT
Lynn Anderson -- one of country's most dominant female vocalists of the 1970s -- died Friday morning (July 31) in Nashville at the age of 67. According to her publicist Pam Lewis, the singer had recently been suffering from pneumonia.
Anderson -- the daughter of singer/songwriters Casey and Liz Anderson -- was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and raised in Fair Oaks, California. In a recent interview with Billboard to promote Bridges, which ended up being her final album, Anderson said you never knew just who might be hanging around the Anderson homestead.
"They would go to an artist's concert, and Mother would invite them to come home and have bacon and eggs at 2 a.m. She'd cook, and Daddy would play them Mom's songs in the living room. It was nothing to wake up in the middle of the night and hear Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Freddie Hart or Wynn Stewart," she recalled.
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Of course, with that exposure to music, there was little doubt what vocation Anderson would pursue. But there was also some competition from her other passion: horses. As a teenager, she won many horse shows around the area and earned the title of California Horse Show Queen in 1966. That same year, Anderson signed her first recording contract with Chart Records.
Her first single for the label, "For Better or for Worse," a duet with regional star Jerry Lane, failed to chart. But her star would soon be on the rise, thanks to the success of "Ride, Ride, Ride," which made it all the way to No. 36 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. By 1967, she hit the top 10 for the first time with "If I Kiss You (Will You Go Away)" and was invited to become a regular cast member on ABC's The Lawrence Welk Show. Anderson continued to place records on the chart throughout the decade, with 1969's "That's a No-No" being the biggest, peaking at No. 2.
In 1970, Anderson signed with Columbia, where her star would rise even further. Her version of Joe South's "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden" became one of the biggest hits of the era, hitting No. 1 on the country charts, and crossing over to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. The exposure from that song helped her win female vocalist of the year awards from both the Academy of Country Music (of which she was an early member) and the Country Music Association. The hits kept coming throughout the '70s with "Listen to a Country Song," "How Can I Unlove You" and covers of pop hits such as "Keep Me In Mind."
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