THE LINER NOTES

 

Released in the fall of 1978, ‘From The Inside’ marks the fourth major career shift for Lynn Anderson; the first album in her long string of releases for Columbia with veteran guitarist and arranger Steve Gibson in the producer’s chair. While very much his own man, with a stellar cred on The Row, it’s clear early on that Gibson is drawing his production themes and arrangements straight from the handbook of none other than the architect of the Countrypolitan genre: Lynn’s former husband and the shepherd of her career, Glenn Sutton.

 

Working with a mixed palette of material largely drawn from Nashville writers, Gibson’s canvas for this twenty-fourth Lynn Anderson edition generally tends to pop colors, with traces of just enough pedal steel from Weldon Myrick, layered guitars from Shane Keister, and background vocals from Lisa Silver and Janie Fricke to ground each work on Music Row.

 

"Rising Above It All" was originally written as a duet by master tunesmiths Foster & Rice, and would eventually be covered by Conway & Loretta. But not before it became this LP’s lead track and first single. A sweeping, and dramatic ballad, Lynn’s vocal weaves through a lyric that rises from pain to hope, her voice the perfect complement for Gibson’s lush and evocative production… a treatment carried over to the LP’s second single and last track in the set, Johnny Christopher’s "Last Love of My Life”.

 

Balanced with a diverse collection of tracks, from Bob McDill’s poetic folk melody “Love Me Back” to Barry Mann’s anthemic, "Sometimes When We Touch", this seventeenth Columbia release would also be the last major label LP from Lynn to include a Liz Anderson title: “When You Marry For Money”; a simple waltz with her trademark lyric twist tied up neatly with Lynn’s effortless vocal…the common thread that runs through every Lynn Anderson recording.

​

J Buck Ford