---

I grew up on Country music, thanks to my mother’s devotion to it (you could say my sibling’s and I were Country when Country wasn’t cool – whether we wanted to be or not), and one of my earliest childhood musical memories is of listening to Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden;” it was one of the few 8-Track cassettes we owned (along with Freddie Fender, Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, Jim Reeves and a few others my memories can’t evoke), and I would listen to music in our ancient 1970s wood-paneled living room of our home, on our wool sofa, across from where our “stereo system” sat. I loved that album as a boy, and revisited it over the years, even into adulthood.

Recently, I listed to the album again and the memories flooded back. I admired her versions of Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” “I Wish I Was A Little Boy Again,” “Snowbird” (made famous by Anne Murray), another Kristofferson gem, “For The Good Times,” and of course, Joe South’s archetypal “Rose Garden,” for which she is most famous for. She died Thursday, in Nashville at 67. Too young.

Rest peacefully, Ms. Anderson. And thank you for the memories…I’ve never walked by a rose garden without thinking of you.

---