Bill Anderson knows what it takes to write a hit song.
After all, he's been writing chart-topping smashes for himself and others for 50 years. His No.1 songs range from Ray Price's "City Lights" to Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss' "Whiskey Lullaby" to George Strait's "Give It Away."
The veteran performer is a member of the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. As a singer, he's had seven No. 1 hits and 29 Top 10 singles, including "Mama Sang A Song," "The Tips Of My Fingers," "8X10" and the country/pop smash "Still." He continues to perform shows all across the country.
When Anderson heard about an Army veteran who wore his worn out military hat every day for decades until the day he traveled to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. - and then he didn't wear the hat anymore - the country legend knew he had to capture the incredible true story in a song. He wrote "Old Army Hat" with fellow songwriter Walt Aldridge. Then, the Opry star put the heart-tugging song on his latest album, "Life."
When the song started generating a lot of attention from fans and the music industry, Anderson wanted to give the song the visual dimension of a music video. So he made a video that brought "Old Army Hat" to life. Yesterday (Nov. 11/Veterans Day), the video made its world television premiere on CMT Pure, CMT.com and the CMT Artists app.
Watch the proud-to-be-an-American, tear-in-your-eye, lump-in-your-throat video here:
Anderson sat down with HNGN for an exclusive interview to reveal the behind-the-scene details of the video and the song.
"I think it's pretty cool that the video is premiering on CMT Pure on Veteran's Day," he said. "That will help the video and the song reach a whole lot of people and, hopefully, resonate with them. That's very exciting."
"I really felt like we needed a video for this song. The video underscores the song's story and message. We shot the video's scenes in several different locations in Nashville and around Middle Tennessee."
At the end of the video, the waning beat of "Old Army Hat" blends seamlessly with Anderson passionately delivering part of "America the Beautiful." The singer says the idea to include the classic patriotic anthem as part of the newer song was the brainchild of Rex Schnelle, the producer of Anderson's "Life" album. The album version of "Old Army Hat" features the "America the Beautiful" ending.
Like the start of more than one hit song, Anderson explained that the genesis for "Old Army Hat" came from a friend of a friend.
"I have a friend who is friends with a guy named Alex Haley - not the one who wrote 'Roots.' Alex's dad is named Ed Haley. Several years ago, when Ed was in his eighties, the World War II memorial opened in Washington, and Ed called his son to tell him that he wanted to go see the memorial. Ed had fought in the South Pacific in World War II, and he was one of only a few in his platoon who survived the war."
"Alex told Ed, 'Dad, I'll take you up there. But that old army hat that you wear around all the time, we're not going to take that because people will laugh at you, they'll laugh at me and they'll think we're bumpkins.' Ed told his son, 'That hat goes where I go and I'm going to wear it up there.'"
"One of the tough things about writing the song was the condensing of the story," Anderson said. "Because Alex Haley told me when they got to the hotel in Washington and the bellman opened the cab's back door he spotted the old hat on his dad's head and, as Ed stepped out of the cab, the bellman saluted him. Alex said as he and his dad walked through the hotel lobby to the registration desk, people were saying 'Thank you, soldier' and they were saluting his dad - all because he had on the hat."
"And when Ed and Alex went out to the memorial, the part of song about the young boy being at the memorial actually happened. The boy spotted Ed's hat and told him that his dad was in the military and that he went off to war and he didn't make it back. The boy asked if he could take a photo with Ed and he asked him if he could wear his hat for the photo."
"Ed was really torn up about the boy's dad not coming home from war, probably in Iraq or Afghanistan, and he gladly let the little boy wear his hat. And when the little boy tried to give it back to him, Ed told him, 'I have had it long enough. I've had it since the 1940's and for all that your daddy did, I want you to have the hat.'"
Anderson got choked up when he told the story to HNGN.
"Ed is a wonderful man. When I really got to know him, he got out his scrapbook and showed me some pictures of him with his unit in the South Pacific. He told me a lot of stories. It has been a real joy in my life to get to know the man."
So, now that Anderson had the true story of what happened with Ed Haley at the World War II Memorial, he felt compelled to turn the story into a song.
"Walt Aldridge is a great songwriter, and he was in Nashville from his home in Muscle Shoals, Alabama," Anderson recalled. "I told Walt the story and I said this is a song just waiting to be written and we need to write it. Walt said we could make the singer the grandson and let him talk about his grandfather and his old army hat."
"We worked on the song pretty hard for a couple of days. The hardest part was trimming the story down because it was so long and it was so beautiful. So we kept condensing it and condensing it to get it down to a three to four minute song. Not long after we wrote it, I decided to sing it on the Grand Ole Opry one night. At the time, I did not know the words well enough to sing it from memory, so I took the lyric sheet out on stage with me. I read the lyrics and stood and played my guitar."
"Unbeknownst to me, Senator Bob Dole's assistant in Washington happened to be listening to the Opry that night and heard 'Old Army Hat.' And Bob Dole was the guiding force behind the building of the World War II Memorial. That was his pet project."
"The assistant told Senator Dole about the song and they looked it up the online in the Opry archives and the senator heard it. He wrote me the most beautiful letter just thanking me for writing the song and he said any time I wanted to come up to the memorial he would make all the arrangements for us to tour the memorial. To have someone that high up the food change be moved by the song was great."
Anderson has now performed "Old Army Hat" on the Grand Ole Opry a number of times.
"You know, I've gotten a standing ovation virtually every time I've sung it on the Opry. A few weeks ago we had a World War II bomber squad that was there celebrating their last reunion. It was going to be their last get-together because nearly all the men were in their late eighties and nineties. There was one man in the group who was a hundred and one years old. I did the song and dedicated it to them. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, including mine. I asked them to all stand up at the end of the song. It was an amazing moment."
There was still a chapter to the "Old Army Hat" story to be written. That chapter took place just a few weeks ago at the Starlight Theater in Branson, Missouri, where Anderson was performing.
"I was closing the show out with 'Old Army Hat' and the people were responding. They were standing up and applauding," Anderson explained. "All of a sudden I heard someone yell from the back of the audience, 'He's here!' I kept singing and didn't pay too much attention to it at first, but the shouting from the back kept going. So, I said to the crowd, 'Who's here?' Someone said, 'The man you wrote that song about.' I said, 'Mr. Haley is here?' Several people said, 'Yes.' I said, 'Mr. Haley, if you're here, please stand up and please come down to the stage, if you can.'"
"Well, down the aisle came 91-year-old Ed Haley. He had a walking cane in one hand and he was shaking peoples' hands with his free hand. All down the aisle he shook hands and he was grinning from ear to ear. On stage he told the audience, 'Be careful what you say around Bill Anderson, he'll write a song about it.'"
