THE LINER NOTES

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Her second LP released in 1977, and her 16th for Columbia, ‘I Love What Love Is Doing To Me’ featured one of the vinyl era’s first interactive cover designs, and stands today as one of the most collectible LP’s in the Lynn Anderson catalog.

 

But the album’s noteworthiness isn’t limited to its sleeve art and kitschy collectibility. Indeed, its importance to her career and her life ran far deeper, for it was the first Lynn Anderson album in more than eight years to not include a Glenn Sutton original. Moreover, having been separated for months, and divorced only weeks before its release, ‘I Love What Love Is Doing To Me’ would also be the last Lynn Anderson session Glenn Sutton would produce.

 

A ten-song set that blurs lines with a mix of country-pop fusion, power chord ballads, and folk-rock; the LP was bolstered by the release of three singles; an aggressive marketing strategy that leaned heavily on the country-pop blend, led by Johnny Cunningham’s title track, an uptempo, glistening arrangement co-produced by Steve Gibson that’s the closest Lynn Anderson may have ever come to country-disco…if that’s even a thing. Of the three singles, "He Ain't You" (credited as the album’s sub-title) stands as her best performance of the three, and while it peaked at a respectable #19 on the country singles charts, the closest this song comes to ‘country’ is the second word in its title.

 

Which brings us to the covers; four uniquely different choices remind us that Lynn Anderson was never an artist bound by conventional genre. Her choices for covers here, and indeed, on virtually every album, underscores that, and brings to mind Duke Ellington’s mantra that if a song ‘sounded good, it was good’. She chose the covers she chose because not only did they…sound good to her, in most cases, they meant something to her. The song spoke to her. No other explanation can be arrived at when you hear her performance of “Desperado”, or "Right Time of the Night"…the two standout tracks on an album that would once again rechart the path of Lynn Anderson’s star.

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J Buck Ford