And this is not mere strumming, as McAnally has won a record-setting 10 trophies as Musician of the Year from the Country Music Association.
Propelled by Eric Darken’s percussion, McAnally accompanies himself on guitar – with the lively rhythms adding a joyful spirit to the track. One of the most uplifting songs on Once in a Lifetime is “Almost All Good,” where he’s aware of challenging times but doesn’t let them cloud his vision. “That opened up that part of my brain that I haven’t been down into for a while.”
“The author came from the same part of the country as me and it woke up a bunch of stuff about my childhood – what it was like hanging with my dad, going to the drugstore, talking about football, politics, and religion,” he says. McAnally translated those images into verses, then added a cool guitar riff he’s been using for years while tuning or changing strings. In McAnally’s case, Harrison Scott Key’s memoir, The World’s Largest Man, sparked vivid snapshots from his own youth. The song emerged from an art project, where novels were given to songwriters and visual artists, who would then create a piece based on their response to the book.
While writing “Alive and in Between,” McAnally drew upon childhood memories of Belmont, Mississippi, where his father was a school administrator and his mother played piano in the Baptist church. I just follow whatever floats through my head.” “I’m not somebody who sits down and says, ‘I need to write a hit song,’ or this or that kind of song. “I generally write whatever comes to me,” he says. Once in a Lifetime captures every aspect of his musical vision. So, with 12 songs pulled from different decades and musical directions, what ultimately ties all these tracks together? Simply put, it is McAnally’s ability to see the silver lining, a perspective he’s carried on his journey from being a shy, small-town kid from Mississippi, to working as a teenage studio musician in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to becoming one of Nashville’s most respected (and self-effacing) singer-songwriters. And while many of the songs are new, he chose to include a few originals dating back to the early 2000s that seemed like a good fit. To reflect the intimacy of his concerts, he arranged most of the material around guitar and percussion – yet he acknowledges that several of its tracks outgrew that simple set-up. For his new album, Once in a Lifetime, Mac McAnally is indeed doing something he’s never done before.
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