THE LINER NOTES

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In the most pop-fused release of her career, the message behind the title song of this 17th album of her career was clear; Lynn Anderson was definitely on ‘Top of the World’.

 

Vaulting to the Top Ten virtually overnight, this June, 1973 edition took its cue from the string of successes Lynn and producer Glenn Sutton had forged with her innate talent for giving new life, meaning and dynamics to covers of classic country, pop and folk releases, creating all new hits in the process. In perhaps the boldest creative move of her career yet, that talent is taken to new heights with an album featuring eight brilliant covers, each branded with the Lynn Anderson - Glenn Sutton - Countrypolitan fingerprint, and each framing the set’s centerpiece and title track.

 

Written in the winter of 1971 by Richard Carpenter and John Bettis, “Top of the World” was one of the few Richard Carpenter songs that Karen Carpenter couldn’t get behind, and was originally released as an album cut on their seventy-two LP, ‘A Song For You’. Taken by the melody and Karen’s vocal, Lynn brought the song to Sutton and co-producer Clive Davis. Before she’d sung three bars, both knew that they were listening to a Lynn Anderson hit. “It would’ve crossed over, and maybe been as big as “Rose Garden”, Lynn’s daughter, Lisa Sutton, recalled recently. “But when Richard (Carpenter) saw it climbing the charts, he and Karen released their version as a single, and it just blew Mom’s cut away.”

 

But not before it had accomplished two things: reaching Number Two on the Billboard Country Charts, and spotlighting Lynn Anderson’s consummate talent for sensing a hit song, and making a hit song her own.

 

Eleven classic tracks. One classic singer.

 

What else do you need?

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J Buck Ford