Bill Anderson was noted by Billboard Magazine as the third-most-prolific songwriter in country music history. He also forged a great career as a singer, scoring 37 Top Ten singles between 1960 and 1978. Seven of those landed at No. 1, including a couple of chart-topping duets with two different female singing partners.
In the first one, Bill Anderson teamed with Jan Howard on “For Loving You” in 1967. Howard had already worked with Bill for several years on his TV show. She replaced Jean Shepard as the regular female singer on the program. During those times, Howard also expanded her solo work.  She landed a No. 5 single, “Evil On Your Mind” in 1966. After “For Loving You” reached No. 1, Anderson and Howard continued their momentum with several more big records. It includes “If It’s All The Same To You” and a cover of the Supremes’  No. 1 pop smash, “Someday We’ll Be Together.” Howard also wrote Anderson’s 1970 hit, “Love Is A Sometimes Thing.”
In 1973 Jan Howard left “The Bill Anderson Show.” Over 200 replacements were considered before Bill settled on Mary Lou Turner. After “World Of Make Believe” climbed to No. 1 in 1974, Anderson was unable to reach that position for a couple of years until he finally recorded a duet with Turner.
That song turned out to be “Sometimes.” The song was written by Bill Anderson while riding on a bus during his tour of England. He picked up a magazine and was reading a review of the new movie, “Shampoo.” The columnist had written about a part in the film where one of the actors asks another if the person is married and the response was “sometimes.” Great songwriters always look for a line like that to trigger an idea. Anderson instantly took the ball and ran with it. His immediate thought was that the comment could be transformed into a duet between a man and a woman. Since there was no paper to write on in the bus, he tore a page out of the magazine he was reading and jotted down the lyrics on it. He finished the song before he got to his destination.