From Dwight Yoakam to Michelle Shocked — Pete Anderson picks the tunes that put him on the map.
BY MARK M C STEA
PETE ANDERSON MADE his name as a hotshot Telemaster and successful producer with Dwight Yoakam when their first album, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., became a double-Platinum smash in 1986. The pair had been working together for two years, finding success with new-wave audiences and roots fans alike, helped by opening slots for the likes of the Blasters and Los Lobos.
Yoakam’s back-to-basics approach eschewed all the trappings that country had fallen into by the 1980s. He was looking back at the golden age of the honky-tonks, taking the Bakersfield vibe from Buck Owens and supercharging it with the punch and drive of the new-wave bands he’d been supporting. A huge part of Yoakam’s success was down to the mind-bending skills of Anderson, who took the art of country guitar to places never before imagined, with solos that seemed to defy all the conventions of the genre, and yet made perfect sense.
Yoakam and Anderson parted ways in 2002 on terms that Anderson says were less than ideal. “He made a movie around 2000 because he was determined to direct and star in it, and it was very costly,” the guitarist explains. That film was South of Heaven, West of Hell. “As a result, he needed to trim down his touring expenses, which meant that the band had to take a big cut in pay. I wasn’t super happy with the way that it ended, because I’d been there for over 20 years, but it all worked out okay in the end. I got to concentrate on doing other things that I hadn’t done before, and I can’t imagine that I could’ve carried on stuffing myself into a tight pair of jeans and putting cowboy boots on, getting the gig bag and flying to North Dakota to play the Indian casino or whatever.
With that said, Anderson says he has fond memories of his time with Yoakam. I remember looking back at the end of my tenure when I was working on the [2002] box set, Reprise, Please Baby, and I was taken aback a little,” he says. “I thought, My god, that’s a lot of music, and I was responsible for every note as the producer, the guitarist and the bandleader. I just felt amazed to actually look back at how much we did. I’m really proud of it. Whenever I listen to it, I think what we did sounded so good.
Anderson’s most recent project has been his new book, How to Produce a Record: A Player’s Philosophy for Making a GreatRecord, which, as the title suggests, gives you all you need — besides talent and some grea
