{"id":1301704,"date":"2018-12-21T10:33:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T17:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1801800"},"modified":"2018-12-21T10:33:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T17:33:09","slug":"bill-andersons-holiday-chaos-in-waffle-house-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/music-news\/bill-andersons-holiday-chaos-in-waffle-house-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Anderson\u2019s Holiday Chaos in \u201cWaffle House Christmas\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:ao:image:cmt.com:665278?width=1200&amp;height=675&amp;.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"\/><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"byline\">by <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/author\/tinglel\/\" title=\"Posts by Lauren Tingle\" rel=\"author\">Lauren Tingle<\/a><\/span> <span class=\"date\">19m ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Few country stars can get an army of their brethren together for a \u201cWaffle House Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bill Anderson is one of them, and he\u2019s having a viral holiday season with his new video co-starring Kid Rock, Tanya Tucker, Gretchen Wilson, Jeannie Seely, Trick Pony\u2019s Ira Dean and more.<\/p>\n<p>At age 81, Anderson says he\u2019ll never stop working. At the time of our CMT.com interview with the song\u2019s co-writers Erin Enderlin and Alex Kline, Anderson had just gotten out of a songwriting appointment and a recording session with Seely.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to remember a time when Anderson wasn\u2019t part of the country music experience. He\u2019s written songs that have ranked on the charts for the last seven decades. He says what keeps him going is feeling that same hunger he\u2019s felt since he first started pursuing music professionally.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m always working on something,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cYou just never know what might happen on a particular day. Right now, it\u2019s a very calm day, and the phone could ring with news telling you the biggest act in the world just cut one of your songs or they just put a song in a movie. It\u2019s just so bizarre the way things can happen in this business, and I still enjoy what I\u2019m doing. When it gets to the point that I don\u2019t enjoy it, I won\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Anderson was totally game when Enderlin presented the idea for \u201cWaffle House Christmas\u201d during their co-write, which was in the middle of summer. Anderson has more than a casual connection with the restaurant chain, having graduated high school in 1955 in Avondale, Ga. the same year the first Waffle House restaurant opened there. Additionally, Waffle House meals are a staple for most touring musicians because the menu is consistent at every location. Enderlin got the initial idea after having a Waffle House Thanksgiving with fellow musician, Sunny Sweeney. Anderson loved it because of the action in the opening line, \u201cMomma burnt the turkey and daddy set the tree on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"deferred_content\">Embedded from <a href=\"http:\/\/media.mtvnservices.com\/embed\/mgid:arc:video:cmt.com:57375fb4-ad4e-4e96-9a46-d854d17d79c8\">media.mtvnservices.com<\/a>. <noscript class=\"deferred_content\" data-deferred-info=\"{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;iframe&quot;}\"> <\/noscript><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve spent other Christmases at a Waffle House,\u201d Enderlin says. \u201cWhen Sunny and I spent Thanksgiving at one of them, I noticed how many people were there with their families because it\u2019s one of the only places open on a holiday. Thanksgiving is really popular there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kline is known among members of the Music Row community for having some of the best ears in town, and \u201cWaffle House Christmas\u201d was her first collaboration with Anderson. She has been making music with Enderlin for seven years and has written songs for Ronnie Dunn, Tara Thompson and Mitchell Tenpenny.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was the first time I had ever met Bill,\u201d Kline recalls. \u201cHe was probably thinking, \u2018Who is this girl coming in here, and why are we writing a Christmas song today?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The video\u2019s director and Anderson\u2019s manager, Lee Willard, says Kid Rock instantly wanted to be part of the video when he pitched the idea to his team. A massive fan of both Anderson and Waffle House, Rock turned down an opportunity to appear on <em>The Simpsons<\/em> to play the cook. He even owns a Rolls Royce with a Waffle House license plate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted Kid Rock to be making a mess on the grill,\u201d Willard recalls, \u201cjust have him back there throwing stuff on the floor and eating people\u2019s food off their plates. It felt like something he would do, and he did it without even questioning it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The result is holiday magic. \u201cWaffle House Christmas\u201d is from Anderson\u2019s 72nd album, <em>Anderson<\/em>, which features additional co-writes with John Paul White and Jamey Johnson.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author\">\n<div class=\"description\">Lauren Tingle is a Tennessean and storyteller who eats music for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When she\u2019s not writing or rocking out, she enjoys yoga and getting lost in the great outdoors.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/1801800\/bill-andersons-holiday-chaos-in-waffle-house-christmas\/\" target=\"_blank\">via:: CMT News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Lauren Tingle 19m ago Few country stars can get an army of their brethren together for a \u201cWaffle House Christmas.\u201d Bill Anderson is one of them, and he\u2019s having a viral holiday season with his new video co-starring Kid Rock, Tanya Tucker, Gretchen Wilson, Jeannie Seely, Trick Pony\u2019s Ira Dean and more. At age [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1301704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 05:12:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1301704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1301704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1301704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1301704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}