In spite of her solid track record, many still thought of Anderson as a new artist when “Rose Garden” came out (her third release for Columbia). At any rate, “Rose Garden” shot her career into the stratosphere, becoming one of the biggest country and pop hits of 1970. For the follow-up, husband/producer Glenn Sutton wrote “You’re My Man.” Lynn would laugh when she reflected about “You’re My Man,” saying “That was written specifically by him, about him, for me to sing about him! Talk about an “in-house” project!” Three years later, an even more blatant example of Glenn’s seemingly super-high opinion of himself surfaced with his song, “What A Man My Man Is,” another chart-topper for Anderson.
As Lynn’s producer, Sutton came under a great deal of criticism in Nashville for recording his own material – songwriters would accuse him of releasing only songs that he wrote (Billy Sherrill did virtually the same thing, although Sherrill wasn’t recording his wife as Glenn was). Before his death in 2007, Sutton answered those charges, explaining: “There weren’t as many good songs available back then as there are now, and if one of my tunes happened to be the best one, then we would have to go with it.”
