Bill Anderson has been nominated for a total of five Grammy Awards, including his recent one, for Best American Roots Performance, for his “Someday It’ll All Make Sense (Bluegrass Version)” collaboration with Dolly Parton. Although the trophy went to Aaron Neville With The Dirty Dozen Brass Band instead, for their “Stompin’ Ground” track, Anderson still counts the nomination among one of his highest career accomplishments.
“I knew I had Grammy nominations for writing. I have never won one. It’d probably be my last shot at it,” Anderson told Billboard, ahead of the ceremony.
Whether or not it is Anderson’s last one remains to be seen. But one thing that has endured for decades is his long-standing friendship with Parton, someone he admires deeply, both as an artist and a human. The 85-year-old filmed the video for “Some Day It’ll All Make Sense” with Parton, a day he will remember forever, for reasons far beyond the filming.
“She set aside from 10:00 AM until 1:00 PM, so we had three hours to do the video,” Anderson recalls. “When we finished filming all the scenes she would be involved [in], we got finished a little before 1:00. There were all kinds of people coming to watch and Dolly stopped and said, ‘Okay, if anybody would like to get pictures or an autograph, we’ve got 15 minutes.’ She stood there and took pictures with everybody in that room. And then she turned to me and said, ‘Ok, I gotta go change clothes. I’m doing a video for the Queen of England.'”
The video was for Queen Elizabeth’s 2022 Platinum Jubilee, just one of the many tasks Parton needed to cross off of her list that day.
“So she finished filming a video with Bill Anderson, changed clothes into something very prim and proper, a black dress with a set of pearls, and did a video for the Queen of England, then changed again and did a video for NASCAR,” Anderson recalls. “She’s amazing. I’ve been so blessed. I mean, I pinch myself sometimes that this has really all happened. If we do win a Grammy on Sunday, that’ll be the cherry on top of the sundae. And if we don’t, it’s still been a fun ride.”
“Someday It’ll All Make Sese” is from Anderson’s As Far As I Can See: The Best Of album, which was released last June. For her part, Parton was thrilled to join Anderson on the song, which he wrote with Bobby Tomberlin and Ryan Larkins.
“Working with my ol’ buddy Bill Anderson was the most meaningful fun I’ve had in years,” Parton sids. “I love the song we sang, I love how we sounded together on it, and getting to do a video with him was just icing on the cake. I hope the fans enjoy it as much as we enjoyed being together on it.”
Download or stream “Someday It’ll All Make Sense” here.
Photo Credit: JB Rowland/ CTK Entertainment