Luke Combs and Eric Church and more artists are paying tribute to Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee John Anderson. On Aug. 5, Easy Eye Sound will release Something Borrowed, Something New: A Tribute to John Anderson, a collection of Anderson songs by not only Combs and Church, but also Jamey Johnson, Brothers Osborne, Ashley McBryde, Tyler Childers, Brent Cobb, Del McCoury, John Prine, Nathaniel Rateliff, Sturgill Simpson, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings and more.
The album was produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and David Ferguson, the same duo who produced Anderson’s 2020 album, Years.
Notably, the album includes renditions of only two of Anderson’s five No. 1 Billboard country hits (Brent Cobb performs “Wild and Blue,” while McBryde offers a cover of “Straight Tequila Night”), while other performers drew from Anderson’s catalog of more than 60 charting songs.
One noteworthy track is the Welch and Rawlings performance of “I Just Came Home to Count the Memories,” the title track to Anderson’s October 1981 album. Church performs Anderson’s 1995 hit “Mississippi Moon,” while Combs takes on the 1992 hit “Seminole Wind.” There is also a recording by the late John Prine of “1959,” a single from Anderson’s 1980 self-titled album.
Anderson’s induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame came in 2014, in recognition of a catalog of hits, including the Anderson compositions “Seminole Wind,” “I Wish I Could Have Been There” (co-written with Kent Robbins) and more.
“Listening to everybody do their own takes on the songs shows how the songs really come through. And I thought to myself, ‘You might have been young and foolish back then, but you sure did pick some good songs,’” Anderson said in a statement. “It’s very gratifying to know that some things really do not change, and a great country song remains a great country song. Any one person on the record would be a real tribute, but all of them together? It’s a pretty big deal for me personally.”
Auerbach added, “We weren’t trying to piddle around and make the normal tribute record. It had to be the best singers with the best songs and the best arrangements, and they all had to come into the studio. This wasn’t like, ‘Mail me the song, and we’ll put it together.’ Everybody had to come here and do their thing. I think it makes this record unique. I don’t think most tribute records are done like this. I think that’s why it sounds like a cohesive album. It feels like an amazing mix tape.”
See the full track list below:
- “1959” performed by John Prine
- “Years” performed by Sierra Ferrell
- “Wild and Blue” performed by Brent Cobb
- “Low Dog Blues” performed by Nathaniel Rateliff
- “Mississippi Moon” performed by Eric Church
- “I Just Came Home to Count the Memories” performed by Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
- “Shoot Low Sheriff!” performed by Tyler Childers
- “Seminole Wind” performed by Luke Combs
- “When It Comes to You” performed by Sturgill Simpson
- “You Can’t Judge A Book (By The Cover)” performed by Brothers Osborne
- “Would You Catch A Falling Star” performed by Del McCoury feat. Sierra Hull
- “Straight Tequila Night” performed by Ashley McBryde
- “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But I’m Gonna Be a Diamond Some Day)” performed by Jamey Johnson
