The Shaped by Sound podcast is made possible through support from Come Hear NC, a program of the North Carolina Arts Council within the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Jim Lauderdale, thank you so much for being on Shaped by Sound.

Thanks so much for having me.

I'm very excited to have you here.

I want to start out and just kind of talk about your roots, right?

You're from North Carolina.

Yes.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yep.

I was born in Statesville, North Carolina, and spent the first five years of my life in Troutman, which is a great place to spend those years.

And my dad was an associate Reformed Presbyterian minister like his father, and my mom was a choir director there at New Perth Church, where my dad preached.

And she also taught chorus in high school and private piano lessons, and my older sister, Becky.

And then we moved to Charlotte when I was five.

That was a great city.

It still is.

And that was also wonderful.

And then we moved to a little town called Due West, South Carolina.

And then when I was 16, during the summers, I was working in Flat Rock, North Carolina, first at a church place, assembly grounds called Bond Clarkon.

And then I went over to the Flat Rock Playhouse and went to the snack bar because I heard this lady, Leona, had a health food store.

And I wanted my own health food store and health food restaurant and organic farm.

That was what I wanted to have.

So you weren't thinking about your dreams of being a musician.

It was like, "I want to own a health food store."

Well, I did want to be a musician, but that was kind of a business thing I wanted to be involved in.

How cool.

I was very into health food as a teenager.

Leona said, "We don't need anybody in my store, but we need somebody to be the assistant maintenance man here at the Flat Rock Playhouse and to help run the concession stand," where she had honey lemonade.

And so I went for that.

And so for three summers, I worked there.

And after the first summer, I stumbled upon this place through the North Carolina Whole Earth Catalog.

They had the Whole Earth Catalog, which was great, and then a North Carolina version.

So I saw this free educational school, and I thought, "I'd love this."

I made a little trip up to Chapel Hill, and I found out the school had closed.

But I ran into these two young ladies at the planetarium.

They were just sitting on the lawn.

I said, "Hey, I'm looking for that free educational school.

It's supposed to be on the street."

And they said, "It's closed.

But wait a minute.

We go to a place called Carolina Friends School, and we'll call the principal, and you could go out there and look at it."

So I did.

I really liked it.

My folks made a trip up, and they approved of me going there.

And so that was - - And how old were you at that time?

- 16.

So junior and senior year of high school.

And so I had started playing the banjo.

- What led you to the banjo?

- When I was still living in Charlotte, I went to see Bonnie and Clyde.

And so when Foggy Mountain Breakdown came on, it was really life-changing.

- It was like one of the chase scenes in Bonnie and Clyde, right?

- Yeah, it just blew my mind.

When I heard Foggy Mountain Breakdown, though, that kind of brought everything together, like seeing the Beatles when I was six in Charlotte when they were on Ed Sullivan at first.

I'd been listening to - my folks played a lot of different kinds of music around the house and the radio.

There was a lot.

I was real drawn to listening to music and to try to sing along to it.

When I saw the Beatles, it kind of brought everything together.

And it's like, "Oh, harmony singing, this and that, and this groove and everything."

It was life-changing for so many of us.

- I'm curious.

So you're talking about sort of these parts of pop culture, right?

Are you sort of seeing like, "Okay, here's an instrument that's sort of regional to where I'm from," but it's also on this much larger media landscape where the nation and the rest of the world is starting to see this sort of instrument in a different way?

- Yes.

- Were you excited by that?

- Yes.

Earl Scruggs.

I got his book, and I knew that he was from Shelby originally.

And I was really drawn to him and his playing.

And then when I went up for a retreat in Flat Rock at Mon Clark retreat, I stopped by this, in a convenience store, they had the Stanley Brothers' greatest hits and Bill Monroe.

So I got both of those.

And so that, I started expanding on my classics of bluegrass.

- Yeah, you're learning from the greats.

- Yes.

- As they were kind of coming out.

And I just kind of went from there.

I took my first banjo lesson from a guy named Mark Pruitt, who was... I was working at this place, Mon Clark, and this was before the Flat Rock Playhouse.

And he taught at a place in Arden called the Mountain Folkway Center.

And Mark is still playing great.

He's playing with a group called Balsam Range.

And just, he's one of the all-time great players.

- It just seems like there's a lot of things that are starting to click.

Like what are those things you're hearing and you're like, "Wow, this is it.

This is something I've been searching for."

- You know, I think that when people have those moments, you know, like they say, "Hey, I remember the first time I heard the Sun sessions, Elvis Presley," which I do.

You know, I remember those things.

The first time I heard Robert Johnson.

- Right.

- The first time I heard George Jones.

And so many of those times, I was living in North Carolina.

So it was interesting to have that.

When I was living in South Carolina, when I was 13 to 16, they let me be a DJ on this college radio station, WARP, at Erskine College.

So I got a lot of albums that way, and that really broadened my horizon.

And like I loved Frank Zappa.

- Right.

- His solo stuff back then.

And so it was kind of a diverse thing.

- Were you seeing this sort of runway where you're like, "I would love to play music like that?"

- It hadn't really formed yet.

You know what I mean?

It hadn't... And I did play drums in the music program at school in North Carolina.

But then when we moved to South Carolina, they didn't have music in the schools, in that county, or at least at my school.

But I, being involved in the radio station, and I still played drums some, but as far as playing a drum set, I was just starting, and I needed more lessons in that.

And so then the banjo won over.

And just that really did put me on the road to thinking, "Hey, I want to be a bluegrass banjo player and singer.

That's what I want to do."

You know, aside from having a health food store and a farm and a health food restaurant.

And actually one summer in South Carolina, I talked to these two other students at Erskine... These two students, I guess they were probably five or six years older than me, and they were going to Erskine College.

And I said, "Hey, there's this health food restaurant in Atlanta near my aunt and uncle's house, cousin's house, and the guy said he'd rent it to us for the summertime."

And so we toyed with that idea, but that would have been a potential disaster because none of us knew what we were doing.

So luckily... - That didn't happen.

- ...music, you know, eventually won out.

Or I'd have a chain of health food restaurants right now.

- You could have been on the early stages of something really big, really popular.

Can you talk to us a little bit about... You sort of have, but I'd love to know a little bit more about how the different parts of North Carolina, how you can hear certain music in those parts and how you're sort of influenced by that.

- I was thinking about this as far as different areas where I had lived, that when I get there, there's this kind of... There's a bit of time right at first where I just kind of absorb the air.

And I think it brings back memories and feelings, and often it triggers some kind of a melody.

And this happens when I drive through Iredell County and drive into Troutman and kind of, you know, sit there for a minute and just all this flood of memories comes up.

And when I went to Carolina Friends School, I was living out in the country, and there were a lot of...next door to this little community where I lived, this lady, Ellen Skalton, would have Sunday afternoon jams.

And that's where I met Tony Williamson, the great mandolin player.

There was a fellow in our community, Rick Boley, that had eventually had a music store called Oxbow Music.

And we had kind of a duo going.

I'd play the banjo and he'd play guitar.

And that also was a big stepping stone for me.

And Rick really was a great mentor.

And he saw to it that I got a really good banjo, a Gibson Master Tone.

And then I started playing when I went to college at the North Carolina School of the Arts.

I started playing a little less banjo and more...I'd picked up the guitar right before I went to college, and I'd started writing songs.

And so he...I traded that Master Tone for a not as expensive guitar.

Of course, by today's standards, it wasn't very expensive at all for a Martin D-21 and a banjo that didn't cost as much.

So I had both things going.

And that really...when you kind of make an upgrade with your instruments, it really helps a lot in a lot of different ways.

You feel like, "Hey, I've worked for this, and this is gonna help me write and play live and everything."

And it did.

Yeah.

Did playing the banjo first help you play guitar maybe a little bit better?

I think so.

I think...and I embarrassingly discovered that I wasn't the person that said this quote first.

I don't think I ever read it, but I would say, "You know, if you play bluegrass, if you start with that, you can play anything."

I was saying that and saying that, and then I heard somebody say, "Well, you know, Bill Monroe used to say if you play..." So anyway, Bill Monroe was right.

And I think it's because of the ear training.

You're really listening.

Yes.

Right?

And it's an oral tradition, too, right?

That's right.

To have to listen and talk to people and communicate about it so you can play that song and pass it down.

Yes.

And there's something about bluegrass and old-timey music where there's this kind of canon of songs that are these standards that you can go to a jam session with people you've never met and say, "Okay, let's do 'Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms' and the key of G," you know, of course.

And then you do that, and everybody can play together.

You know, you didn't have to rehearse or anything.

It's just automatic.

And that still happens today.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Also, there was a festival that I went to with Rick Boley called Camp Springs when I was in high school and went a couple of times when I was in college, too, and that was near Greensboro.

And this bluegrass promoter, Carlton Haney, who was a big guy in the music biz, he kind of discovered Charlie Pride, who I'd mentioned, and was a - promoted country shows.

But he loved bluegrass, so he had his own festival.

He had a few festivals.

Also in high school, I listened really intently for the first time, even though I'd listened to Jerry Garcia's first solo album.

But I really got into Working Man's Dead and American Beauty, and that was a big turning point for me because I hear bluegrass influences and rock and blues and R&B.

It's all - Right.

I listened to Grateful Dead, I guess I was a junior in high school.

They were playing at Duke University with New Riders of the Purple Sage opening up, and I was really taken with them and their sound.

Yeah.

Did you record it?

Did you record them?

No, no.

No, I didn't know.

No.

I want to jump into some Grateful Dead in a minute, but I kind of want to circle back to a little bit about North Carolina first.

Sure.

What do you think it is about the atmosphere here that creates sort of this kind of inspiration and creativity inside of you?

For me, being from here, it's just got that because of all the stuff I've seen and heard and experienced here in North Carolina.

I think I've met a lot of people that aren't originally from here, but they're just really drawn to it.

There's something that speaks to them.

I also, when I was in college, I had a cousin that lived in the Outer Banks, and so I'd go see them and really - I was like, "Hey, wait a minute.

I thought I was a mountain guy, but it's really beautiful here."

I really wanted to learn how to surf, but also I didn't have any lessons, so I didn't know what I was doing, so I never was successful at it, even though that's a great place to surf.

It's a great place.

I think music is such an important language for us and a thing that really gets into the deepest part of your being.

Then when you couple that with your life and what's going on, it's like when I first heard that song, like I was saying, and also when I was visiting the mountains of North Carolina when I was in high school and I went with these college kids.

Back in the day, a lot of times people would put on one album and play it over and over again and flip the side and play it.

I remember they're playing "Deja Vu" by Crosby, Stills & Nash.

I think there's also a time in your life when you, like I sure did, listen more intently.

I'm sure it still happens a lot to most people, but just sitting there and just kind of listening to something, just listening, not doing anything else.

Maybe that was a period of time, because now there's so much stimulus going on.

But back then, really, it was.

It was like you'd kind of go to a social gathering with your friends and you'd just sit there and listen to something.

You wouldn't be talking or anything.

I miss that.

Yeah, I bet.

I miss that.

I never got that opportunity, because in my life, I feel like it's been just like I've always had this digital chaos.

I do recommend that for people, just to let that music go in.

Back then, too, and still to some extent, but people made albums as a piece of whole - Right, a complete work.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

I think that's real important.

We've lost that to some extent, even though back in the day, people would release singles, which would help promote the album, and that still happens.

But sometimes it seems like in the business, it's just kind of driven by the singles.

Maybe eventually they'll make a compilation.

But people - I still make albums.

That's important for me.

You make really good ones.

Well, thank you.

I mean, that was kind of - as the dream started growing of like, "I want to be a musician.

I want to be a songwriter.

I want to be a singer.

I want to get a record deal.

I want to tour."

Then, I mean, making the albums and writing them became real important, and it still is.

I was a little bit concerned a few years ago, because people were saying, "Albums, they're going to be out of here by another year or so.

They're not going to happen."

I thought, "Great.

Well, I've got - " I kind of think the opposite's happening for me right now.

I hope so.

A lot of the stuff that I'm listening to right now, I want to listen to more of, and I want to listen to the full thing.

Right.

Because I do feel like I'm bouncing around all this stuff, and it gets lost for me.

But if I sit down and listen to an album start to finish, even like a new record from somebody, I'm really finding that richness that I can attach to, versus just one song, and then I'm on to the next thing.

It feels like I'm more afraid of ping-ponging around, and I'm more ready to just really sit into something and really just have the whole thing.

But that's very rare.

I feel like for everybody else in the world, they just want the one.

I want to just kind of ask you too.

As a young man, you've put down the banjo, you've picked up the guitar now, you're starting to play.

When were you like, "I'm really ready to start writing songs"?

In college, I'd written, I think, about three songs at first.

And there was a fellow named Zan McCloud who lived out in the country in Chapel Hill.

And when I was going to Carolina Friends School, I met him.

Rick Boley was a friend of Zan's.

They were both from Charlotte originally.

And Zan was like a guitar player's guitar player, and he was just an incredible guitar player, electric and acoustic.

And often he would play with Rick and I. And so Zan, when I would make pilgrimages from Winston-Salem back to Chapel Hill just to kind of hang out with Zan and jam with him and learn from him.

And so I showed him these songs and he said, "Hey, let's go to Steve Groenbach's studio."

And it was out in the country, out in the woods.

So I went in and Zan produced these three songs and they were, I don't know if you'd call them country rock.

They were kind of rockin'.

I thought when I did these three songs, I thought, "Well, I'm on my way and this is it.

I'll have a record deal pretty soon."

And I really did think that it's like, "Well, somebody's gonna hear these and they will give me a record deal.

And I guess I'll be leaving school here on the road in a few months and making albums and that's it."

- How long did it take from that moment to your first record deal?

- Probably 13 years.

- Wow.

- So what were you doing for 13 years of time there?

You're just continuing to learn and play and jam and... - Yes.

Well, when I got out of school, I went to Nashville for about five months.

I knew some people there and I wanted to hang out with George Jones.

And I'd really gotten so into George Jones and a guy named Roland White, who he and his brother had a group called the Kentucky Colonels.

They were from California.

And Clarence White, his brother, was this very innovative guitar player.

He was...Doc Watson, of course, from North Carolina, influenced and brought in lead acoustic guitar playing for the most part.

And so Clarence kind of went, added kind of his own flair to it.

But Clarence tragically was killed in 1973 by a drunk driver.

He and Roland...Clarence had joined the Byrds, the rock group.

He'd gone from Bluegrass and then joined the Byrds.

He invented, with a guy named Gene Parsons, a drummer.

It was called the Parsons White B-Bender, which the fellow that plays guitar with me, Craig Smith, has a B-Bender.

And he does a solo on a song called "Game Changer" I wrote that I wanted to hear that kind of solo.

And few people are real masters at that, but Craig Smith is.

And it sounds kind of like a pedal steel guitar, but you just bend the neck of your guitar.

You have to get the back of your guitar... Loose?

Have something installed, these springs and things, and it bends that second high string, the B string.

So it's going... But anyhow, Roland, I wanted to go to Nashville to hang out with Roland White and do Bluegrass with him and to hang out with George Jones and do, you know, kind of just sit at his feet and tag along and everything.

But I was too nervous about George Jones.

But Roland White was very approachable, and we became friends.

I realized after about four and a half months, "Hey, I'm not gonna make it here in Nashville.

It's not gonna happen for me.

I'll go to New York City," where some of my classmates had gone.

And I went there, but before I left, Roland and I did an album together.

He said, "Why don't we record?"

So we went to Earl Scruggs' basement.

His son Steve had a studio, and Earl would bring down coffee, and he was just such a nice guy.

He'd actually wear an apron and bring a silver tray with coffee, and it was just kind of like, "Wow, this is unbelievable."

But we made this album, and Earl was just as nice as he could be.

It was kind of mind-blowing, because I was thinking, "Here I am, sitting here with Earl Scruggs and Roland White and these great musicians."

And Roland had invited a young musician I'd seen play before named Marty Stewart, and he played lead guitar on a bunch of things.

And so I went to New York thinking, "I've got this tape of this Bluegrass album.

I'll get a Bluegrass - there are a bunch of great Bluegrass players in New York I'd seen at Camp Springs, North Carolina, and I'm on my way."

But I couldn't get a deal for the album, because I was a newcomer.

I mean, it was like, "Well, you're not on the festival circuit."

So it was this Catch-22.

Right.

So they're basically saying, "We don't know who you are."

Right.

Now, there was this country scene, though, in New York that started, oddly enough, there, and there were several clubs.

It's like an oxymoron, isn't it?

And I met Buddy Miller up there, Larry Campbell, and then Buddy got Shawn Colvin to come up.

So we were just playing these clubs, and I was a messenger at Rolling Stone magazine during the day, 'cause I thought, "Hey, I read this article about Steve Forbert and his singer-songwriter.

He'd moved to New York, and he was a messenger."

So I thought, "Hey."

At least you can get in the building, right?

Pardon?

You can get in the building, right?

Yeah.

So you're at Rolling Stone, hopefully, so they will listen to your record.

Yeah.

And the folks were really nice.

But I got, skip ahead then 33 years, I believe, after not getting a deal, and then after moving to Nashville later, because during that time, I said to Roland, when I finally got a record deal later, I said, "Roland, I bet somebody will put this out now."

And he said, "Great.

Well, you've got the masters, right?"

And I said, "No, I thought you had the masters of them."

He's like, "No, I don't know where it is."

So that sat.

It all got lost?

And then once Roland was sitting in with me at this Bluegrass Club, the Station Inn, and as he was leaving the stage - and that was where Roland kindly let me sit in with him.

And then as he was leaving, he said, "Oh, my wife found a tape with our name on it that was at the bottom of a box."

And so it was that record.

And I had signed a deal with a North Carolina record label called Yep Roc.

I had made several albums with them earlier.

And so they put that out, and it became my 30th album.

And it would have been my first.

You said to wait 30 years for it.

Yeah, that's right.

So sometimes things take longer than you think they would.

It's worth it, though.

Yeah, I bet.

And maybe - like, I realize now looking back at different things, it's like I wasn't ready for this or that at the time, even though I wanted that to happen.

But I wasn't ready.

I wasn't worthy of it.

You know, I had more things to learn and to do first.

Kind of flashing forward here a little bit, because you do ultimately make your way back to Nashville, right?

Yes.

And I mean, it seems like you put in a ton of work in Nashville.

Yes.

Can you talk to us a little bit about sort of that experience, going into Nashville and really starting to gain momentum in your career, right?

Yes.

I eventually, after living in New York for a while, and I ended up in Los Angeles that I was going to try for a little while.

But that was the place where everything really started falling into place.

There was a great country scene, and people like Lucinda Williams and Chris Gaffney, Dale Watson, Rosie Flores were living there.

And there was a club, the Palomino, this club that had been around since the early '50s.

And there was this history of country done their way, but that was successful and popular across the world.

Right.

Is this sort of like that cosmic country scene a bit?

Well, it did develop into that, yes.

But back in the day, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, a lot of great people.

And Dwight Yoakam was out there, and I started singing on his albums, singing harmonies, and also with Lucinda.

Wow.

So you were getting a lot of opportunities.

Yes, yes.

It seems like.

So kind of quickly.

Yeah, yeah.

Things happened there on a bigger scale faster than anywhere.

And that was good, because I didn't know where else I'd go to really get my foot in the door.

And I was afraid to go back to Nashville, because I thought, "If I get rejected again, it'll crush me, and I won't have anything to fall back on."

And I couldn't fall back on my fledgling career as a mime, which when I was going to the North Carolina School of the Arts, I was really interested.

Wait, were you really a mime at some point in time?

Yeah.

Well, there, but not white-face mime, but just kind of more - it was almost like silent film comedy.

Kind of some of it slapstick, but then some a little bit out there.

And we had a mime group there, and my mime teacher wanted me to go into mime, but I knew that I really wanted to do music.

Right.

Put that on the list of other careers that Jim Lauderdale could have had.

That's right.

Organic food store, mime school.

And you know, I was just thinking about that as you were saying it.

Maybe someday I'll have the store with a little restaurant with a little stage.

Yeah.

I can have music sometimes, mime.

So you're in Los Angeles.

You're meeting all these people.

You're starting to sing backup vocals for Dwight Yoakum.

It seems like you're getting a lot of momentum.

Is there a moment where you do leave Los Angeles and jump to Nashville, and you actually really plant there?

Is that right?

Yes.

I got a publishing deal where you write songs for a company.

They take a percentage of your song in return of what they call pitching your song.

They take somebody from a song plugger is what they're called, and they take your songs.

They'll have a meeting with a producer or a label or an artist and play several things for them in this meeting and to see if anything kind of catches the attention of that person.

And so some small things started happening, but I was kind of a little out there stylistically in some ways.

Some of the stuff was too traditional.

And but then... 'Cause you were coming from this Los Angeles country scene.

Yes.

Different.

But which see, the thing is is that the stuff I was doing out there was very traditional.

It was very old school sounding.

It sounded very Bakersfield.

But then I did start writing with a buddy of mine that I'd known in New York, a guitar player named John Leventhal.

And we started writing, and he was visiting Los Angeles, and we got together, wrote a song.

He had the idea for this song called "Where the Sidewalk Ends."

So we wrote that.

He took it back to New York, and his little apartment studio did a demo, and it just sounded incredible.

And so we kind of... To me, it was this real magical collaborative partnership we had.

And great guitar player, and just so tasty, and just his tone was just... And his choice.

He was a great producer.

So anyhow, we started writing, but before that, I got a record deal with a company called Epic Records.

And Pete Anderson, Dwight Yoakam's producer, produced an album, and we did it out there in Los Angeles.

So I thought again, "Hey, I'm on my way."

But the record, it's a long story, but due to record company, this person then left, and this and that, and they just weren't interested after a while.

So they didn't put the record out.

But then I got this publishing deal right at that time, right as it wasn't coming out, and I started writing with John Leventhal.

And I got another record deal with Warner Brothers, and John Leventhal and Rodney Crowell produced that.

Rodney brought along John, and he really loved John's style.

So that record came out, and again, I thought, "Hey, this is it.

This is it.

This record."

But then the record company just didn't really get behind it.

And but I got a call from a lady, Pat McMurray, that worked there at Blue Water, and she said, "Yesterday, Tony Brown, this producer, cut two of your songs on George Strait that's gonna be in this movie called Pure Country, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and then a song I'd written in Los Angeles as a tribute to George Jones and Graham Parsons."

Graham Parsons was somebody I really, I gravitated towards, went right when I first heard him.

So this tribute song, "The King of Broken Hearts," he recorded that, and that got on the album.

And then people started accepting me more.

As a writer, they started asking for songs after that.

It kind of opened the door.

What were you starting to see because of that?

My publisher would say, "Hey, so-and-so's coming over for a meeting."

Things really started to pick up momentum then for you.

Yes.

Yeah.

It kind of, it's one of those things in the business, music business or life, it's like when you get, when something good happens for you, after years and years of like, "Gosh, I just can't seem to catch a break."

But then when something happens and opens that door a little bit, then it can potentially lead to other things.

And so it did.

And I had several deals after that that I thought, "Hey, maybe this is the one."

But it never worked out for me on country radio.

But other people would record things from the albums.

And so I'd be really disappointed of like, "Gosh, this wasn't me.

I didn't get a hit on this.

But so-and-so just recorded this song."

So it hit.

So your music was getting out there in other ways.

Yes.

People are hearing your music and making their own versions of it.

Right.

And that allowed me to have a living and supported my career as making my own records.

Who are some of the folks that were doing that, that were recording those songs?

Patti Loveless and the Dixie Chicks, Mandy Barnett, Kathy Matea, Gary Allen.

Those were some of the country, the Dirt Band.

So a lot.

Yeah.

And then later, other kind of different, Solomon Burke and Old Crow and Lucinda recorded one later.

Yeah, that's a pretty great roster of folks.

It was good.

Yeah.

I'm really thankful for all that.

And I wanted to ask you, it seems like a lot of the songs you write are about hope.

And having you kind of talk to me through that whole story, it seems like you were going through this sort of like, I don't know, circular motion of just trying and trying and trying.

What is that theme of hope?

How does that keep coming back?

Well, I can't remember exactly when the first thing I wrote, I just felt like that, and some of my favorite writers too, would write outside of themselves.

It wasn't all one guy that I went to a music seminar as I was trying to get things going, and he was saying, "You know, 80% of songs are love songs," or blah, blah, blah.

So for commercial radio, and that's a lot of the stuff other than when people like The Stones or the Allman Brothers or other kind of rock stuff comes in, it's like, "Hey, this isn't about relationships, you know, the good and the bad.

It's other things."

Dylan, you know, writing all sorts of things.

Robert Hunter with - and the Grateful Dead.

And maybe it was a record in 1994 called Pretty Close to the Truth where I wrote one called That's Not the Way It Works.

It's kind of a stark song in some ways, but then there's hope in it.

And another song, actually, that was on after this one.

The first one was in '94 called Grace's Song, a hopeful song.

And then on the next album, which also this song, Every Second Counts, is the title of the song and the album.

And that song, That's Not the Way It Works, was on that.

And it just snowballed a little more, where it was like, you know, the world is in such bad shape right now.

People need something to cheer them up a little bit, give them some encouragement.

And then during the pandemic, I had finished, almost finished a country album I'd been working on that became Game Changer, and I wanted that.

That was the one that's like, ah, you know, now the world is, you know- Desperately in need of some hope.

Coming to a-yeah, the world has stopped in some ways, but it's going still.

And I thought I wanted to do an album.

You know how during COVID, so many artists, it's like, this was my COVID album and pandemic album.

So I thought I'll delay this Game Changer album and do something that is inspirational, hopefully.

And it was for me.

It was really good for me.

During the first part of COVID, I was just kind of so lost and hopeless in some ways and really depressed and just kind of-and then I started-it was actually, too, listening to The Grateful Dead and some other things that it took me out of myself and writing the songs that became Hope.

That was a real special record.

And so since then, too, I try to do some things.

You know, you can't always.

And sometimes when you write those stark songs, too, it's kind of like you feel good sometimes when you listen to a bluesy thing or a down thing.

It kind of makes you feel-you know what I mean?

Yeah, of course.

You immediately associate yourself in a sad way to a blues song.

Yes.

And I think that as songwriters, we want to-it's great when we can write something to make somebody feel something, you know?

What is that like for you when you know that you've done that?

Good.

It feels really good.

Yeah.

Is that sort of the point of what you do?

Yes, yeah.

And I mean, I think about this sometimes when I go to the studio and I take these guys in there and it's like, "Oh, boy, I'm not really prepared.

I don't have it all together."

And it's like Jay Weaver, who plays bass and produces and co-produces these records that I've been doing the last several years, he gets in there with the guys and it's like, "Look, we're just not trying to lay down something here.

We want to change the world here."

You know, and I think that's a great way of looking at it.

Jay, I've really been fortunate to work with him and they've really grown a lot.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

I want to take sort of a little bit of a turn.

Sure.

I feel like this does sort of fit into the influence of your music and its fashion.

Because Jimmy got an incredible shirt on.

You got an incredible costume.

I wouldn't say costume, but just suit and suits.

We've been able to see into your closet a little bit and I'm jealous of your Western way.

Don't be.

So, I want to ask you a little bit about Western wear and sort of like that influence of just, not just the music, but sort of the fashion side of it and how that sort of speaks specifically to what you're doing.

Well, when I moved out to California, there was a tailor out there named Manuel who had worked for a while his father-in-law, a guy named Nudie, who was this - and there's this history of designers for Western wear that lived in California.

There was a guy, Turk, before Nudie and there were some others.

But that, I guess really that is where - and people like Rose Maddox and the Maddox brothers, people started wearing stuff with kind of a little rhinestones or fringe or whatever, but stage clothes and the Grand Ole Opry, Hank Senior, Graham Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers, those guys had stuff made by Nudie.

And I was - Porter Wagner, when I was living in North Carolina, I used to watch the Porter Wagner show and he wore Nudie suits.

But there was just something to me that was kind of magical or something about these clothes.

So I started getting stuff from Manuel and have through the years.

And there's a lady that makes shirts for me that lives in England.

She's got a company named Dandy and Rose and so she makes great Western shirts.

And Janet Aspley is her name.

And it's funny though because lately I have been - maybe it's because I've for years and years, gosh guess about 35 or 36 years, been wearing that kind of stuff.

There's part of me that feels I'm almost thinking, gosh, I need to tone it down a little bit because the world is in such a precarious place and there's so many people that need just the necessities of life.

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I feel - and certain wars going on and I think, gosh, I don't know.

- I think it's - from somebody that is from the total outside of your universe, it is so cool to see you in the full Western wear because I think it calls to my mind that cosmic country, that homage to the LA country, the old school Nashville sound, like the real deal.

And I mean, I think it's incredible.

I can understand why you're kind of maybe shying away from it, but Jim, I hope you never do because it's so cool.

In fact, people from our offices came down specifically to see what you were going to wear.

- Well, I'll tell you what, I'll possibly keep wearing that stuff if I can raise money to help some people who really need things.

- I feel like you probably could.

- So all right, let's see how that goes.

- Perfect.

- How do you go about writing a song?

Like, where does that sort of start from for you?

- A melody will come to me or a title or a line and that's - I think every songwriter has their process and co-writing is a different thing, but when I write - like I was laying in bed the other morning and before I got up, I was thinking for some reason that songs are kind of like entities that are like - for instance, I was thinking at the bottom of this brook, this creek going over all these rocks, down in there in that mud inside of - there's a song.

There's something there that will come bubbling up and I think it really - it's something that I get these ideas, but then I have to discipline myself or make the time to like, "Okay, I'm going to sit down and work on this thing."

They don't come to me and complete like in one fell swoop.

Usually sometimes, but not often.

And so you just - I just will kind of then get my guitar or I'll put the melody down on my phone and write a few things longhand.

I don't use my device, computers or anything like that.

Most of my co-writers do, but I just write it out.

And my terrible handwriting that looks like some kind of a secret code, which that's not intentional, but I just kind of let the song unfold and that's usually how it happens.

So it's almost like you find this like sort of just - you're like going through that brook.

Yes.

You find this interesting thing at the bottom of that brook.

Right.

Yeah.

Pull it out of there and then you have to sort of shine that thing.

Yes.

And make it sort of really what it is.

That's right.

Yeah.

And they - I think they are inside of songwriters just there and also in your environment with what you - something kind of jogs your mind with that outside of yourself.

And then it's that combination really.

So it's a combination of like place and the person.

Yes.

And when you were asking a while ago about hopeful songs, I - they help me because I'm certainly no positive person all the time or anything like that.

So I don't make any pretenses about that.

And I go through like anybody else my share of chaos, confusion, depression, troubles.

And I was laying in bed this morning and thinking of a song that I hope I'll finish by the time this comes out.

But it was the idea of a guy - kind of an old-timey song like with a claw hammer banjo about a guy that is under his worry quilt.

You know, he's laying there with a troubled mind and it's like this, that, that, and guilt under the worry quilt.

You know, and it's like - but even in the summertime when I don't have anything around me, it's still there, so maybe it's not the worry quilt.

But I don't know if that makes any sense.

Well, this is a rock we're still polishing here.

That's right.

But it's these - you know, for me and probably most songwriters, you gotta - something comes to you and then you go from there.

That's kind of your foundation.

Right.

And that you can build on after that.

And I was thinking two years ago, I have a song called "I'm a Song."

Because I was thinking - and I think about this sometimes after shows when people will - you know, you'll go out and talk to folks and everything.

And I realized a long time ago that I can kind of communicate on a certain level, but that my brain is working differently.

And like somebody might even say - or I can say, "Yeah, I saw - oh, gosh, what's that person's name the other day?"

Or "Yeah, I -" you know, but my brain, it's - musically, I'm thinking of lyrics or letting them flow or whatever, unless I'm trying something I hadn't done in a while or never done.

And so I really have to concentrate lyrically instead of just thinking - you know, being in the moment with the lyric of what - and letting the story come out.

You know?

- Yeah.

- But I - it's - my brain is in a different place, and it takes a while to kind of come down from the performance and kind of just get into a regular, normal frame of mind, if that makes any sense.

- Sure.

- But I think there was - and so there was a time where I was thinking, "You know what?

I'm like - I've got, you know, this or that that I really want to change and that's really bugging me about myself, you know, and it seems like the best thing I have to offer to the world or to anybody else, just another human, is just music, because I feel like I'm failing in this or that, but I'm a song.

That's really what I am."

- Right.

- So... - That's the way for you to communicate with people and also continue to be heard, maybe?

- Yeah.

- Right?

- Yeah.

So, I wrote this tune called "I'm a Song," which it's not - I'm not trying to cop out, but it's also bringing other people in.

It's like, "Hey, you're a song and we're a song."

- Right.

- You know, because - and there again, getting outside of myself, it's like it's more universal, really.

You know, we are, in a lot of ways, songs, if we think about it or let it, you know?

- Well, that ties in perfectly to my next question, because, you know, the show is called Shape by Sound, right, it's about how music is a huge part of who we are, how it influences us people and communities.

So is that sort of how you are shaped by sound?

- Yeah, I think so.

- That we are just made of music and sound, and sometimes it's the way that we channel it that makes us able to communicate with others?

- Yes.

I think there's something about music that's so - I mean, it goes back so long, and it exists in animals and birds.

There's a guy named Joe Newberry who lives in Raleigh, and I was working on a Bluegrass record several weeks ago, and I called him before I went in, and I said, "Listen, going in tomorrow, you got any scraps of anything I can finish?"

And he sat down and sent me this idea fairly quickly, and it's called "The Birds Know."

You know, like, yeah, they know.

And I just thought it was so creative.

And that's one thing I love about co-writing with people is because when you get in a room with somebody, I feel like the end result is something that I never would have done on my own, and I was lucky to - I've been lucky to write with a lot of great writers.

And Robert Hunter, that was a real dream because he and I wrote a lot and became friends, and his writing is just - he was one of the best ever.

Yes.

Well, getting back to this thing about music in general and the songs of birds and sounds out there, you know, just whatever, thunder, you know, leaves blowing, you know, these sounds that kind of have an effect on us.

And then as human beings making music, it's been so important throughout as long as there's been a human.

And now where it's - you know, I remember as a kid going to this ice skating - I mean roller skating rink in Charlotte, and I guess I was eight.

Maybe - no, I guess I was still - I was seven.

But this Beatles song, "I Feel Fine," came over the PA, and that guitar riff that kicks off the song and then just the whole thing, and it was like - I was thinking, "Wow, gosh."

I mean, I wasn't thinking, "Oh, I feel so alive."

It was beyond words, but it was just this magic feeling.

And as mentioned earlier, hearing Foggy Mountain Breakdown or hearing George Jones on certain things, whatever, you know, all of these great pieces of music, of songs that I've heard that everybody has those, I think, and that either they - when I've heard them on the radio, when radio is really great or whatever, that just kind of becomes this soundtrack for your life.

And I can't really do it justice in trying to describe it because it is beyond even describing a lyric that might - I'm just - I'm not good at really putting my finger on that, but there is this magic about it.

And I do feel like I know that there was that period in the '60s and '70s where it's like, "We're going to change the world."

And it did to a certain extent.

It really did change greatly to a certain extent.

And I feel like where we're at now, things have - I get sad because I feel like we're at a bleak, scary, horrific time, just different things going on.

And it's like, can it - I mean, I'm not naive to think.

All it needs is a song to change everything.

But that can be really impactful for people.

But it can be impactful, and it's really important.

And I guess it's those - I think anyway, it's those little things that happen that change everything in your life.

And so I'm just - I think we will never stop listening to music or creating it.

And it has so many layers to it and so many different things, moods, emotions, feelings.

And it hopefully can have some impact on a bigger scale.

But in the meantime, it's just kind of like chipping away at things.

And we can - it'll have an impact on our individual lives.

And that's all we can do.

- It had an impact on yours, right?

- Sure.

- Early on where you're listening to that music and you're saying it was just blowing your mind, right?

But certainly, that's happening for something that you're making to somebody else.

And they're like, "Oh, my gosh, I never even thought about something like this."

- Absolutely.

- And it has that smaller impact, but it's still there.

It's cyclical.

- Yes.

And I think that through the last several years, I've been consuming a lot of news, which is important.

But I feel like, okay, look, I'm getting to a place like, okay, I want to know what's going on out there.

I want to be informed and educated on what's going on.

But I do have to set limits on it.

I can't listen to that all the time and not listen to any music.

And I really feel a difference when I do that.

Brings you a little peace.

And then a lot of times, too, when I'm traveling and I turn on what I would call an Americana station, which is a radio station.

Let's take WNCW, for instance.

In Raleigh, they've got That Station.

But an Americana format, meaning they play a little bit of everything, of rock, country, blues, soul, jazz, every folk.

It's a little bit of everything.

And I love that.

- Yeah, me too.

- But it's great to discover a new song or a new artist out there.

And there's a lot of more and more artists out there, singer-songwriters, bands, re-releases of all or newfound tracks of some band from 20, 30, 40 years ago even.

So as listeners, it never ends.

We could never listen to everything that's out there.

So the good news is, too, for us, is that that music is out there.

We're not lacking for good music.

- No, you just gotta go find it now.

- Yeah, that's right.

- Well, I'm glad that we found you, Jim, and you got to hang out with us.

- Well, I'm so glad to talk to you.

Now what I'd like to do, since we've talked, I'd like to start over, go back, and now I'm kind of getting the flow of what the show would be like.

I'll probably say some of the same things, but... So let's do that.

- We'll start over from... - We've got time.

- Yeah, these guys will love to stay here for another two hours.

- I've got all day long.

- Yeah.

- Go ahead and keep going.

Before we do that and start over, I do wanna go through the song list.

So I'd like to start out, the first one is "That Kind of Life."

Can you tell us about "That Kind of Life?"

- Yes.

Okay, that tune, "That Kind of Life," the riff came to me, which a lot of times will happen and I really enjoy telling the guitar player, pedal steel player, "I'm hearing this thing."

[Imitating guitar playing] And go through the... Describe and sing, hum, and sing what I wanna hear, and then they come up with that at first.

I thought, "Wait a minute, this is crazy.

People are gonna..." But musicians, they like that.

And that happened on some soul records I did.

I told these horn players, it's like, "Here's this figure.

I hope you don't mind."

They're like, "No, we like that."

So that figure came to me, and I didn't really know what it was gonna be about, but then it just kind of unfolded.

But the first lyric was, the kicks off the song, "When a baby tastes a little bit of sunshine and kicks their legs bouncing up and down."

I was just picturing an infant doing that and happy and everything.

So then the rest of the song followed from that.

So it started out with some very small parts of that and then it really blossomed, huh?

Yeah.

How cool.

Can you talk to us about "Friends Again?"

Sure.

And with "Friends Again," it was just... That melody and that title just came to me, and I was just thinking, "Hey, you have this kind of breakup with a friend, but then that sweet reunion and you're friends again."

Yeah, you hug it out.

Yeah.

And that's happened to all of us, I think.

Yeah.

You talked a little bit about "The King of Broken Hearts."

Can you talk to us a little bit more about "The King of Broken Hearts"?

Yes.

So I moved out to Los Angeles, and one of the reasons why I was looking forward to going out there was I knew Graham Parsons had lived in Los Angeles.

And so I wanted to just be... Walk those streets he walked and go to the clubs and go to the desert where he'd like to go.

And so I was at this place called the Magic Hotel where I was living in Hollywood, and I had this biography about him that had just come out, the first one, by a guy named Sid Griffin.

And so as I was reading it, there was this story about how somebody was recounting that he had a party and that he put on George Jones' record, and he started crying.

And he said, "That's the king of broken hearts."

And so when I read that, this melody came out.

And so I wrote about half of it, and then I went out to Joshua Tree, and it was a full moon, and I went to this place where he used to hang out called Cap Rock, and then finished the song there that night.

So you kind of tapped into something magical there.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, I really enjoyed riding out in the desert, and that was kind of the first that kicked it off for me was that song, riding that.

Cool.

Can you talk to us about "The Opportunity to Help Somebody Through It?

Yes.

When I was working on this record that ended up, the record was called "Hope," and I had this idea for kind of a country rock song, and it was called "The Opera."

I was just thinking, it's like, I was thinking about the song itself, about during COVID, about a few instances in my life where it's like, "Wow, this guy did this favor for me."

This guy I met in Nashville right before I moved up to New York named John Messler.

I met him at the station, and he was visiting.

He lived in New Jersey.

I said, "Man, I'm getting ready to move up to New York City.

Do you know any place I can play?"

And he said, "I'm gonna call this guy, Hugh O'Lonnie, that's got this country bar called O'Lonnie's.

And you could play solo in between sets of bands.

I'll see if he can use you."

So I got this gig playing there, and I'd play there occasionally, not every night or every weekend.

I met Larry Campbell, this great steel player.

That first night I was playing in between this band, and that started my thing up there in New York of playing.

And it's like if he hadn't have made that call and I would have moved up there, it wouldn't have been the same.

I don't know if any... And so I was thinking, it's like my life would be different.

This wouldn't have happened, and that wouldn't have happened.

So I thought, we all have that opportunity to help somebody.

And through it, through this.

And so that's where it came from.

And I've got to give Jay Weaver, who's playing bass, credit.

He was producing this album.

And I played, when we were in the studio, I played this version of that, and it was this country, rockin' kind of train beat song.

And I really liked that feeling.

I went, "You know what, let's try this groove on there."

And I was like thinking, "Oh no, that's not... I'll try it, I'll try it."

And then it really... I love the treatment.

- Yeah, sort of took off for you.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Can you talk to us a little bit about "The Road is a River"?

- Yeah, I was in the studio, and I just thought of that title.

And it was being on the road a lot, and I was just thinking, "You know, the road, being on the road, driving, whatever, in some ways it's like a river, these arteries."

And the lyrics just started coming out when I was in the studio, "The city's spreading out so fast, there's no stopping, I guess.

Been too many bets, there'll be no country left."

And it just all kinda came out quickly.

And I've just gotta say, when you're making a record, so much is... The musicians involved are really so important.

And I've just been so fortunate to work with a lot of great musicians.

And these guys with me, they've played on my records, and they're just stellar.

And it's so great.

They're such great guys.

It's fun to travel with them, and they really care about what they're doing.

And people really love hearing them.

- Yeah, they're an incredible band.

They all sound amazing together.

- Yeah.

- Can you tell us about Game Changer?

- Yes.

This title there again, it came from a title, Game Changer.

And I'm saying it's a person in that song.

They're the game changer.

"Where have you been?

I've been waiting all my life for you."

And Craig Smith does this incredible B-bender solo that I just think is brilliant for that style of guitar.

- Can you tell us about Patchwork River?

Now, this is a song that you and Robert Hunter wrote together, is that right?

- Yes.

- And for those out there, Robert Hunter of The Grateful Dead, right?

Incredible songwriter, probably one of the greats.

What was that experience like writing songs with him?

Especially this song.

- I'd made several albums and I approached Ralph Stanley about being on writing a song for him and his band, The Clinch Mountain Boys, to be the last cut on a country record I did for RCA Records.

And so he agreed and we did that.

And then I sang on one of his albums and I started just kind of sitting in with them and then getting gigs, opening for him.

And I went to Merle Fest for the first time and I was just gonna sit in with them.

And his son, Ralph II, had gotten sick that morning.

And I walked into the dressing room and his guitar player, the late James Allen Shelton, said, "Oh, good, he's here.

Hey, you've gotta go on.

II is sick."

II is Ralph Stanley's name.

So I was like, "Ah."

So we had a quick rehearsal and David Grisman, who's one of my childhood heroes, Ralph invited him to sit in on a mandolin.

So it was just this incredible experience.

And so I asked Ralph after that, it's like, "Hey, how about us doing an album together?"

So he agreed.

And so through a friend of mine that knows everything about The Grateful Dead, Rob Bleatstein, I said, "Rob, I'd love to write with Robert Hunter for this record with Ralph Stanley.

Could you let him know that?"

And so he did, and Robert and I wrote a song for that record.

And then he told me about this book of lyrics that he had called "Box of Rain," and said there's a song called "I Will Wait for You" that nobody's put any music to.

So I put music to that, and we cut those with Ralph, and he came to Nashville for about three months, and we wrote about 33 songs.

When I wasn't on the road, I'd go visit him.

And so it was just really flowing.

And then I made an album out of 13 of those songs called "Headed for the Hills," a mostly acoustic album.

And then I went out to California and sat down with him out there, and we wrote this album that became "Patchwork River."

And so sometimes I would give Robert, like before that, I'd write a melody, put down a melody on a cassette, leave it with him.

And when I'd come back from the road, boom, he'd have a lyric.

And with "Patchwork River," some two, he started giving me lyrics, and so he gave me the lyric to that one, and so this melody came out.

And that was the way it was.

We put out six records of our collaborations, and then I peppered certain other albums of mine with a song here, a couple of songs there, things we wrote.

And there's still some unrecorded things, but it was just a great-I still can't believe that.

Yeah, it must be a dream realized.

I mean, you were talking earlier that some of your biggest influences were "Working Man's Dead" and "American Beauty."

So it's like, gosh, to work with one of the people that was writing the lyrics for him, that must have been incredible.

He was a wonderful guy.

I would tell him, especially later when I'd visit him, and I told him this a couple of times, I said, "Robert, there's that commercial, that beer commercial, and they say, 'The World's Most Interesting Man.'"

I said, "You're the world's most interesting man."

Yeah, I believe that.

And he was-oh, man, he just was like an encyclopedia of music and listened to so much stuff of all sorts of styles, and read just voraciously.

Yeah, that's awesome.

What a cool part of your career.

We're sort of at the end of our conversation for now.

I wanted to go ahead and just ask if there's anybody in the room that wanted to speak to any other questions that I haven't maybe asked yet.

Anything.

Anything.

Nothing's too personal.

I mean, I guess we probably-I mean, if we're gonna do this all again, the whole thing, and start from the beginning- We're gonna do it all again, but- Because there were a few points I wanted to kind of interject in there, and I can't do it unless we start from the very beginning.

But we can start over again, but we have to do it in reverse.

That's fine.

We can go backwards.

That's fine.

Is there anything that you would like to add, Jim?

I can't think of anything.

But if something comes to me, we can always come in here tomorrow.

Yeah, we'll get everybody in on OT.

Actually, we're gonna come in early tomorrow at 7:30.

7:30.

Bright and early, sir.

5.

Okay.

Yep, 5.

So that we can start this over again.

We can do this a couple more times.

And get it right.

Yeah, and get it right.

Yeah.

Well, Jim Lauderdale, thank you so much for being here on Shaped by Sound.

We're so happy to be here with you and be able to share this.

So thanks a lot.

It was great.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for joining us on the Shaped by Sound podcast.

If you'd like to hear some of the songs we discussed today, you can find them on our website, pbsnc.org/shapedbysound.

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