Keeping traditions alive and making new ones.
If you had to name one artist who best embodied what americana music is then you could do a lot worse than look to Jim Lauderdale. He is a songwriter’s songwriter whose songs have been covered by everyone from Nashville stalwarts like George Strait, Patty Loveless, Vince Gill and George Jones, to roots musicians like Dave Edmunds, Albert Lee, Old Crow Medicine Show, John Oates, Luther Dickinson, John Mayall, and the String Cheese Incident. He is also a great singer and guitarist who has played on sessions for artists like Elvis Costello, Peter Rowan, Dwight Yoakam, Willie Nelson, and Lucinda Williams to name only a few. If all this activity wasn’t enough, he has maintained a prolific recording career that reflects his sense of musical history, and his love of bluegrass, traditional country, country rock and country soul, which has seen him collaborate with Emmylou Harris, Roland White, Donna the Buffalo, Robert Hunter, Buddy Miller, Ralph Stanley, and the North Mississippi Allstar. He has a new album out, “My Favorite Place”, which he again recorded with his band the Game Changers, that reflects his love of hard country, it is also his 37th release. Americana UK’s Martin Johnson caught up with Jim Lauderdale over Zoom in his hotel after a gruelling early flight to discuss the new album and what keeps driving him to record at such a prolific rate. The Game Changers come in for a lot of praise, and Jim Lauderdale shares his hopes of bringing them to the UK and Europe if he can get the right interest from promoters. He explains how influential the Grateful Dead’s music has had on his own as well as the traditional sounds of country, and the joy he had working with their lyricist, Robert Hunter. He also tips his hat to British musicians Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello and remembers the pleasure when Nick Lowe coming out when he played in London with Buddy Miller in his band in 1992.
