‘Tequila’ Adds Punch to His Career : Personality: After six years off the charts, singer-songwriter John Anderson--who will appear at the Crazy Horse tonight--is back on top.

He has a voice rather like a honey-filled beehive. But John Anderson makes his singing even more unusual by way of what nearly seems a musical nervous tic: Triggered by the emotional rhythms of his songs, his head frequently flinches away from his microphone as he sings, causing his voice to fade in and out in a way that curiously enhances the feeling in his phrasing.

One nearly expects him to employ the same technique with his telephone. But his heavily accented voice comes through the line at a consistent volume.

“Sometimes I just fade in and out more than I do other times,” Anderson--who plays the Crazy Horse in Santa Ana tonight--said last week from his 140-acre Tennessee home. “It’s not anything that I do consciously.” One particularly long fade-out--from the country charts--has just ended. His “Straight Tequila Night” recently landed in the Top 10, a place he hadn’t seen since 1986.

Anderson had a long climb to success: The 37-year-old Apopka, Fla., native began making records in 1974 and it was nearly a decade of hard work before he stormed the charts with three No. 1 hits in 1982 and ’83. It wasn’t easy to see stardom fade but neither, he said, was it devastating to him.

“My band and I still loved what we were able to do. We were still able to write songs and do records, and we were fortunately able to keep out on the road. I’d say the biggest thing that kept us going were those true fans who kept coming out, even though we didn’t have a hit record. There were fortunately enough of them that we were able to keep things going.

“I became a bit frustrated at first when some of the records started dropping off and not hitting like they had been. But I found out real quick that frustrated was not the way to be. There’s nobody to blame, and even if there were, it doesn’t do any good to blame them at this point.

“And certainly to be resentful toward the fellows who were doing good was not the way to be. So I am thankful I was able to keep a pretty level head about all of it and just keep hoping we could do well sometime again. It’s a very cyclical business.”

Anderson doesn’t have any solid ideas about why his records were coming up short in the charts, but he’s quick to cite producer James Stroud and new label, BNA Entertainment (the new Nashville-based subsidiary of RCA-owner BMG Music), for the success of his “Tequila Night” single and his album, “Seminole Wind.”

Unlike his excellent “10” album, on which he had a hand in writing nearly every song, “Seminole Wind” includes only two Anderson originals, the title track and one other.

“I had more songs written for this album,” he said, “but it seemed we just found other ones that seemed to fit a little better. I think I’m able to bring as much feeling to a song I didn’t write. I know my songs come from the heart, and when I choose songs that other people have written, it’s when I relate to them to the point that I wish I had written them.”

That said, the emotional centerpiece of the album remains Anderson’s own “Seminole Wind,” a stark, fiddle-haunted reflection on the passing of the Florida Anderson loves:

Progress came and took its toll

And in the name of flood control

They made their plans and drained the land.

Now the glades are going dry

And the last time I walked in the swamps,

I stood up on a cypress stump, I listened close,

and I heard the ghost of Osceola crying .

So blow, blow, Seminole wind . Blow like you’ll never blow again..

“I’d taken a trip down to Florida to see my grandmother,” Anderson said. “I was looking across the Florida countryside and I saw a lot of things I’d grown up with--the different trees, Spanish moss, the lakes down there. Those are the things about Florida that make it unique, and the things that should be saved.”

Country music hasn’t exactly been a bastion of activism, but Anderson thinks that is changing somewhat.

“There are a lot of people who are involved these days, especially in the environment. A lot of the artists are talking about recycling these days, and environmental problems. I think it’s a good thing to talk about in any kind of music.”

Anderson performed at one of the Farm Aid shows and has played for smaller benefits in support of family farmers. Closer to home, he involves himself in Nashville’s Second Harvest Food Bank. Among other activities for the group, Anderson and other performers play an annual acoustic show. This last year, he shared the bill with Emmylou Harris, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Steve Wariner and Kathy Mattea.

It was at the Food Bank show two years ago that Anderson met Mark Knopfler. The Dire Straits leader had been a fan of Anderson’s singing, and the two became friends. Knopfler contributed his song “When It Comes to You” to Anderson’s album and plays guitar on it.

It’s far from Anderson’s first go at mixing with the rock world: A couple of years ago, Elton John collaborator Bernie Taupin sought him out to co-write songs. And long before that, Anderson cut his musical teeth on Beatles, Stones and Hendrix songs.

“The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were hot right at the time I was growing up, so of course I started out playing that kind of music as a kid in Central Florida. We had a little group together, and we earned extra money by playing dances and things,” he recalls. “That’s pretty much the music we played up until I was 14 and 15.

“I guess then that country hit me a little earlier than it does most people. I’d always loved the old-time songs--I called it folk music because I thought they were just songs that had always been around. Then I came to find out that they were by Hank Williams Sr., Jimmy Rodgers, the Delmore Brothers. So I kind of came into country music without knowing it.

“The big influences on my singing since then have been Merle Haggard, George Jones and Levon Helm of the Band.” Another of Anderson’s heroes was blues songwriting great Willie Dixon, who died this month. “I had been a great fan and got the chance to meet and talk with him some last year. To me Willie was one of the greatest. I love his songs, all of them, and I’m going to miss him.” Anderson does covers of Dixon’s “You Cant Judge a Book by Its Cover” and “Foolin Around.”

Anderson spent much of last year off the road, busy with a new daughter born last March, and with settling on his new record label. With a hit to propel him, he figures he’ll spend the better part of 10 months on the road this year. While that does bring him to some of hid favorite clubs (including, he said, the Crazy Horse: “Every time we play there it’s been a great audience”), it also will keep him away from the home he loves.

“I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors,” he said, “and I’ve got a little spot of it with 140 acres. I love to fish and hunt. We don’t keep all of it mowed but let it go wild for the critters to roam. We have a lot of deer and wild turkey.

“I like to watch them run around. I love to quail hunt. I’ve got plenty of dogs, about seven bird dogs and five regular dogs. I hope I get to see them again this year.”

John Anderson sings tonight at 7 and 10 at the Crazy Horse Steak House, 1580 Brookhollow Drive, Santa Ana. Tickets: $23.50. Information: (714) 549-1512.