Guitarist and songwriter
Rusty Anderson is a musician who has balanced a well-respected career on his own with a very successful part-time gig as a sideman and studio musician, which has seen him work with everyone from
Paul McCartney to
Neil Diamond.
Rusty Anderson grew up in La Habra, CA, and in the mid-'70s formed his first band, a hard rock outfit called Eulogy, when he was only 13. Eulogy won a sizable local following and earned an audition with Arista Records head
Clive Davis, but the band was never signed and broke up without releasing a recording.
Anderson soon formed a new band, the Living Daylights, which gave him a greater opportunity to indulge his fondness for offbeat psychedelic and progressive rock; while the Living Daylights also failed to break into the big time, a copy of their demo tape made its way to producer
David Kahne, who was impressed with
Anderson's guitar skills and invited him to contribute some solos to an album he was producing for
the Bangles, 1986's
Different Light.
Anderson continued to work as a session musician while pursuing his own projects; he was briefly a member of
Animal Logic, a short-lived supergroup featuring former
Police drummer
Stewart Copeland and
Return to Forever bassist
Stanley Clarke, and later was guitarist and songwriter with the alternative rock band
Ednaswap, who released three albums between 1995 and 1998, but received their greatest success through another artist when
Natalie Imbruglia scored an international hit with the song "Torn," originally recorded by
Ednaswap on their album
Wacko Magneto. In 1999,
Ednaswap broke up, the same year that
Anderson once again found himself being heard all around the world through someone else's record when he contributed the guitar solo to
Ricky Martin's breakthrough hit "Livin' la Vida Loca."
But
Anderson's biggest break came in 2001, when he was invited to play guitar on
Paul McCartney's album
Driving Rain and subsequently signed on as a guitarist with
McCartney's road band for his world tour, which was documented on the albums Back in the U.S. and Back in the World.
Anderson later appeared on
McCartney's 2005 release
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, and again joined the ex-
Beatle for his subsequent road work. In 2003,
Anderson finally released his first solo album,
Undressing Underwater, which featured contributions from
McCartney,
Stewart Copeland,
David Kahne, and a number of other musicians who'd worked with him over the years.
Anderson continued to be an in-demand guitar player, and it was seven years before he released his sophomore album, Born on Earth, in 2010. ~ Mark Deming