Now a modern two-lane blacktop/Runs across the old homeplace," John Anderson sings on "Disappearing Farmer," the most trenchant track on his fourth album, Wild and Blue. But the cracks in his voice are the ruts of back-country dirt roads. At a time when crossover is king and even "outlaws" prefer urbane easy listening (Willie Nelson warbles the Procol Harum songbook), Anderson is stubbornly out of sync. A young man who echoes the authenticity of songs recorded by the likes of Lefty Frizzell and Carl Smith in the Fifties, Anderson is just about the best thing that's happened to country music in the Eighties.

Anderson is an anomaly but not an antique, for he combines a defiant traditionalism with a sophisticated fondness for haunting, minor-key modulations and subtle, quarter-tone slurs. A sober George Jones, he never chokes on the lump in his throat when he croons. His quaver suggests a wistful innocence, not delirium tremens. And when he rocks, his voice deepens and assumes a hard edge.

Anderson's last record, I Just Came Home to Count the Memories, suffered from a self-conscious eclecticism and made a few feckless forays into folk-rock. But Wild and Blue rediscovers the old verities and revels in the plink of a banjo, the strut of a fiddle, the whistling whine of a steel guitar and a dobro's laconic lilt. The refrain of the title tune is an invitation to a hoedown, and "The Waltz You Saved for Me," Anderson's brief, heartbreaking duet with Emmylou Harris, is as pure as a teardrop, as elegant as crystal. Anderson even manages, by dint of his simple straightforwardness, to breathe new life into "The Long Black Veil," to which Merle Haggard contributes a chorus.

The album's only shortcomings are the preponderance of lachrymose tempos and a tendency toward 3/4 time. Would that the record were a bit wilder and a little less blue! Only one song, "Swing-in'," is an out-and-out rocker, and here Anderson's uncharacteristic vocal sounds too close to Levon Helm for comfort. Nevertheless, the album is imbued with the indomitable spirit of the "Disappearing Farmer," who defies drought, depression and bankers: "He was smilin' on his deathbed/Glad he hadn't sold out to them." John Anderson isn't about to sell the farm, either. (RS 382)

KEN EMERSON