Lynn Anderson, singer of ‘Rose Garden,’ dies in Nashville

Williamson County country music star Lynn Anderson, 67, died Thursday, July 30, after a brief illness caused her hospitalization.

With the release of her first #1 country hit, “Rose Garden“, Anderson became a crossover star as the song hit #3 on the pop chart.

She returned briefly to the country Top 10 with a Gary Morris duet in 1983, “You’re Welcome to Tonight“.

Her performance netted the singer a Grammy for best country vocal performance (female) and helped her win female vocalist of the year from the Country Music Association in 1971. “It was perfectly timed”. Last month, the songstress released a gospel album titled “Bridges” and began a nationwide tour to promote her new music. This song stated that you can make something out of nothing. “It fit me well and I’ll be proud to be connected to it until I die”. And she once appeared on Starsky and Hutch, as well as the 1982 TV movie Country Gold. “Her parents, Casey and Liz Anderson, were songwriters; her mother wrote Merle Haggard’s “(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers” and “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive”. “Always continuing to pave the road for those to follow”, Reba McEntire says in a press release. “Rose Garden” was a song I sang in high school in our Kiowa Cowboys High School band. The daughter of country songwriters Casey and Liz Anderson, she started performing at the age of 6. She also performed for presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. “I remember the first time we saw her at the Utah State Fair”.

In 2005, Anderson was accused of shoplifting a “Harry Potter” DVD from a Taos supermarket and then punching a police officer as she was being put into a patrol auto.

Anderson was also an awarded equestrian and horse breeder, and she supported and worked with numerous charities, including the Roundup for Autism and the Cariety Foundation, among others.

Lynn – who was previously married to country singer Glenn Sutton and oilman Harold “Spook” Stream III – is survived by her father, three adult children, four grandchildren and her partner Mentor Williams.