Friday Night
Tradition continues with up-and-coming Friday star

Keith Anderson

If it's Friday night, then it must be time for an up-andcoming entertainer and time to raise funds for the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund.

The Jasper Lions Club Rodeo is organizing a whole night to the fund that aids injured rodeo performers.

The fund was established in 1989 to help professional rodeo participants needing something to fall back on when the road got a little too rough. The program receives donations and distributes funds to cowboys in need of a helping hand when they become injured while on the rodeo circuit.

"Rodeo cowboys have a hard time getting medical insurance," Scott Burton said. "This is a fund that helps them when they are not able to work.

"It helps them buy Christmas presents for their kids and helps them with their hospital bills and replaces that refrigerator that goes out when you are not working," Burton said.

With no guaranteed salaries or injured reserve provisions in the sport of rodeo, these professional athletes are often left with no place to turn when faced with serious, sidelining injuries and the accompanying financial hardship.

Recognizing that serious injuries can be traumatic enough without the additional burden of financial worries, the Justin Boot Company formed a partnership with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) and the Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) in 1989 to establish the JCCF.

Unique among today's numerous charitable organizations, the Justin Cowboy

Crisis Fund stands above the rest by dedicating 100 percent of all cont r i b u t i o n s received for disbursement to eligible applicants.

The JCCF's premise is to lend a helping hand to professional rodeo athletes and their families in the event of catastrophic injuries. The fund fills the void of financial hardship when the inevitable serious injury interferes with the careers of those who have dedicated their lives to the sport. Assistance awards are based on the severity of injury, the number of dependents and the applicant's financial situation.

In keeping with the tradition of bringing top quality acts to the rodeo stage, this year's Friday headliner will be no diffeent.

Every song Keith Anderson sings sounds like a hit, and the proof is in his Top 10 debut, "Pickin' Wildflowers," and his most recent Top 10 hit, "Every Time I Hear Your Name," both off of his Arista Records debut Three Chord Country and American Rock & Roll, and both accompanied by #1 music videos.

He'd already proven himself as an ace songwriter with the Grammy-nominated "Beer Run (B Double E Double Are You In?)," recorded as a duet by Garth Brooks and George Jones, and "The Bed," recorded by the multi-Platinum Gretchen Wilson as a vocal event with Big & Rich.

Just months after releasing his debut disc, Anderson was ranked as country's #1 new male artist of 2005 by music trades Billboard and Radio & Records.

"I've had a really blessed life," says the Oklahoma native. "Whatever I set my mind to do, I believe I can do."

Indeed. Within four years of forming his band and playing the Nashville nightclubs, it seemed like everybody on Music Row was talking about this new country music sensation. In the wake of "Beer Run," dozens of song publishers courted him. After a series of showcases in 2004, he was lured by five record companies.

"His sound hits home with the core country music audience, with Middle America," says RCA Label Group A&R Senior VP Renee Bell, who signed him to Arista. "His music has so much energy, and it's so much fun. It makes you feel good."

Anderson is a native of Miami, OK, a town of 10,000 or so, near the Arkansas border and its Ozark Mountains. His father LeRoy worked as a mechanic and handyman. His mother Janice ran a dog grooming business from home. When Anderson was a boy, the Andersons began taking in foster children.

"They are amazing people," says Anderson. "They are just angels on earth. There were always loads of kids around, all kinds of cousins. It's a big, hugging family. I still kiss my parents when I see them. They are very, very affectionate."

Anderson, his younger brother Jason and his older brother Brian grew up to be best friends. Jason remained in Oklahoma, where he is a successful accountant who created Anderson's original website.

As a teenager, he began backing his brother on drums at their local church. He bought records by the Eagles and fell in love with harmony singing. He learned the songs of Kenny Rogers, James Taylor, Boston, and Willie Nelson. He made his first attempts at writing his own. Then it was off to college and academic excellence.

Anderson earned his engineering degree at Oklahoma State, graduating first in his class with a 3.9 GPA and playing baseball well enough to be approached by the Kansas City Royals. A shoulder injury ended his baseball career, but his commitment to physical fitness led to him placing second in the Mr. Oklahoma bodybuilding competition. All the while, he was tinkering with songwriting.

He was hired by a top construction-engineering firm in Dallas. The job paid quite well, but Anderson quit within a year and a half.

"I became obsessed with music. At that time, there were four major clubs in Dallas, and every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, there was somebody that I wanted to go see. I just started falling in love with music and began to try to write songs again. I went home at Christmas and asked my brother to teach me chords on the guitar."

Back in Dallas, he auditioned for the Grapevine Opry, a show that had been a springboard for LeAnn Rimes and others. After three years as a regular there, Anderson earned a performing slot at the Six Flags Over Texas park. He also entertained at the Texas State Fair.

By day, he worked as a landscaper and became certified as a personal trainer. With an eye still on education, he took pre-med courses and was accepted for the rigorous Physical Therapy program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

"The month before I started, I thought, 'Wait a minute. This is going to be a whole bunch of commitment. If I'm ever going to do music, I need to go for it 100%. NOW. Physical therapy will always be there, and my engineering degree will always be there.'

"But I was still looking for ways to make money. A girlfriend got me into modeling. Not a lot of fashion. Mostly catalogs for sports stuff, J.C. Penney's, Dr. Pepper, and some others. I never really was a big, successful model. I didn't get a lot of jobs. I was just being a ham and listening and learning. And doing just enough to where it helped teach me to do what I do now.

"Me and Rusty Gaston, my friend from the Six Flags show, were talking one day. 'We're out of money.' 'What can we do?' 'Well, we know every country love song on the charts. Let's start a country singing-telegram business.' Valentine's Day was two weeks away. We became the Romeo Cowboys. And that's what got me in with radio."

He scraped together some money, traveled to Nashville, hired the band Western Flyer to back him in the studio, and recorded six of his songs. He took the result around to stations in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, trying to make friends wherever he could.

"I just built a reputation. I started calling as many radio stations as I could think of that I could go into, interview, play live or play my CD, and just get them to like what I did enough to write a little letter of recommendation. And that's what I came to town with - a card that had my 'head shot' photo, those letters of recommendation, and my little CD."

Anderson arrived in Nashville in the spring of 1998 with a terminally ill car and $2,000 he'd saved. He took a job as a waiter at a restaurant on Music Row.

"I was a terrible waiter. I never figured out the computer system. I was messing up every day. But fortunately, they liked me enough to keep me on. I met a lot of music industry people there just by trying to be a fun waiter and making them laugh. And I always had my demo CD ready if somebody asked for it."

Today Anderson continues to maintain a hectic schedule - one filled with touring, songwriting appointments and a dedication to fitness.