Country star Mark Chesnutt has shared a heartfelt Facebook tribute to his late friend John Anderson, remembering the Hall of Famer through a bond the two singers shared away from the stage: hunting.

Parade reports that Chesnutt wrote, "I got to spend time with John Anderson doing things that he and I both loved. Hunting, of course!" and joked that Anderson "wasn't difficult to find when they were out together. I could hear him coming a mile away with his big burly voice."

Chesnutt, himself a defining traditional country voice of the 1990s with hits like "Too Cold at Home" and "Bubba Shot the Jukebox," closed with "I will miss you, big John!" and asked fans to keep Anderson's family in their prayers.

Fans responding to Chesnutt's post immediately understood what he meant about Anderson being in a league of his own. Parade notes one fan wrote, "Never was anyone like John and there never will be," adding that his unique voice "can never be matched."

Others recalled discovering Anderson's music as children — one remembered playing "Chicken Truck" on a parent's stereo, another described growing up on a Texas dirt road while records played in the living room, writing, "We lost another one of our old radio heros. Not many are left."

The responses repeatedly returned to the same theme: an irreplaceable voice, but a catalog and legacy of timeless songs that will outlast any radio era.

The Profile, in a new biographical piece, frames Anderson's life as one of country music's unlikeliest rises: a roofer who helped build the Grand Ole Opry House became one of its most distinctive voices.

According to The Profile, Anderson was born December 13, 1954, in Apopka, Florida, got his first guitar at seven, and discovered George Jones and Merle Haggard at 15.

He moved to Nashville in 1972 and worked as a roofer to pay the bills — with one of his jobs on the new Grand Ole Opry House itself — before signing with Warner Bros. and scoring his big break with "Swingin'" in 1983, which won CMA Single of the Year.

The details The Profile assembles underline why Anderson's death at 71 on October 21, 2026, at his home in Smithville, Tennessee — reportedly in his sleep, with no cause given — landed so hard.

He notched five No. 1 country hits and a comeback few stars manage: after his late-1980s hits dried up, 1992's double-platinum Seminole Wind produced "Straight Tequila Night" and its title track, and "Money in the Bank" hit No. 1 in 1993.

In 2020 the Years album, produced by Dan Auerbach and David Ferguson, introduced him to a new generation; in 2022 Luke Combs, Eric Church, Tyler Childers and others recorded his songs for a tribute album, and in 2024 he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Perhaps the detail The Profile flags most pointedly is timing: Anderson's last public appearance was at the Country Music Hall of Fame's 2026 induction ceremony — which honored Tim McGraw, the Stanley Brothers and Paul Overstreet — and he died three days later.

Scripps News reports his family's statement remembered him as "the heart of our family," a devoted husband, father and grandfather whose greatest legacy was the love he gave them, with services held privately.