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Nashville, Tennessee Success, Bill Anderson could tell you, is often as much a matter of timing as it is hard work. Knowing just when to emphasize a word to drive the lyric home. Being sure to pitch your songs when the singer's going into the studio. Sometimes, it can be as simple as picking up the phone. On Tuesday afternoon, July 11, 1961, the singer and his wife were watching major-league baseball's All-Star Game – the first of two that year. As dramatic a finish as that game had – Roberto Clemente drove in Willie Mays from second with a clutch single to right off Hoyt Wilhelm in the 10th inning – for Anderson, it was nothing compared to the excitement that came from the telephone call. "I almost didn't answer it," he recalls. "I'm thinking, 'I don't want to get up off of this sofa and go answer that phone. I'm trying to watch a ballgame. Who would be so inconsiderate?' But back in those days, we didn't have answering machines or voicemail. So I got up and answered the phone. It was Ott Devine."  "If you want someone's attention, whisper." Bill Anderson has been using that philosophy for three decades to capture the attention of millions of country music fans around the world. Anderson had seen Devine, the general manager of the Grand Ole Opry, just three days before in Panama City, Florida. Anderson had played the City Auditorium there as part of a package show, and he'd gotten three encores for his new single, "Po' Folks." Devine usually would've been in Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium on a Saturday night, but that weekend he had just happened to be taking a fishing trip, and he'd bought a ticket to catch the local country show. Devine had complimented Anderson backstage that night, but the phone call conveyed just how impressed he was. "He said, 'How would you like to become the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry?" Anderson recalls. "I've often though, 'What if I didn't answer the phone?' If I hadn't, he might've changed his mind or forgotten about it." The former sportswriter and disc jockey had already begun to make a name for himself in Nashville, writing Ray Price's 1958 smash "City Lights" and hitting the Top 10 on his own with "Walk Out Backwards" and "The Tip of My Fingers" (a song that would be a hit four more times, for Roy Clark, Eddy Arnold, Jean Shepard and Steve Wariner). Joining the Opry, though, put Anderson's career on a whole different plane. Anderson spent seven weeks at Number One on the country charts in 1962 with "Mama Sang a Song." "Still," with a gentle half-spoken, half-sung delivery that would give Anderson the nickname "Whispering Bill," stayed there for another seven weeks the following year. As an artist, Anderson put 80 singles on the country charts between 1958 and 1991. His songwriting credentials are even more impressive. In all, Anderson the songwriter has placed 132 singles on the country charts – more than any other songwriters except for Harlan Howard and Bob McDill. Anderson's run of hits as a songwriter has spanned nearly 50 years, starting with "City Lights" and running through Joe Nichols' 2007 Top 10, "I'll Wait for You," earning him entry into both the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1975) and the Country Music Hall of Fame (2001). His credits include '60s classics like Connie Smith's "Once a Day" and Country Music Hall of Famer Lefty Frizzell's "Saginaw, Michigan" along with such recent hits as Kenny Chesney's "A Lot of Things Different" and Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss' award-winning duet, "Whiskey Lullaby."
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