Keith Anderson is one well-rounded dude. After graduating at the top of his class from Oklahoma State University, the former catalogue model and bodybuilder was set to join the Kansas City Royals before a shoulder injury sidelined his pro baseball career.
Anderson moved to Dallas and worked a variety of day jobs, but dreams of making it as a country music star—a remnant of his teenage days listening to Willie Nelson albums and scratching out his own lyrics—refused to die.
He worked the local nightclub circuit and, in the late 1990s, moved to Nashville to give a music career a full-time go. Not surprisingly, Anderson excelled there, as well.
He made his name known among Music City songwriters, scoring his first big hit with “Beer Run (B Double E Double Are You In?),” recorded by Garth Brooks with George Jones and a highlight of Brook’s 2001 album, Scarecrow.
More success followed with “The Bed,” a hit for Gretchen Wilson, and most notably “Lost in This Moment,” a number one single for Big & Rich in 2007. (It also earned Anderson a CMA and ACMSong of the Year nomination.)
“Lost in This Moment” is included on Anderson’s sophomore release, C’MON!, which builds on the certified-gold success of 2005’s Three Chord Country and American Rock & Roll.
“I moved to Nashville to get a record deal and while it didn’t happen as quickly as I’d have liked, it was a blessing because I got to spend those years writing and developing a song catalogue,” Anderson says in a press release.
From the sound of it, paying his dues was worth it. Anderson co-wrote 10 of the album’s 11 tracks, which run the gamut from loose, guitar- heavy jams (“C’MON!”), to the obligatory heartbreak ballad (“I Still Miss You”), to straight-ahead honky-tonk (“Crazy Over You”). Like the man himself, it’s as well-rounded as they come.
“I moved to Nashville to get a record deal and while it didn’t happen as quickly as I’d have liked, it was a blessing because I got to spend those years writing and developing a song catalogue”