Country music from a fan's point of view since 2008
After success as a mainstream songwriter, Jim Lauderdale turned his sights on bluegrass with 2002’s I FEEL LIKE SINGING TODAY, the first of two collaborations with Dr. Ralph Stanley on the Dualtone label.
I noticed that Wikipedia has this album listed as being released on the Rebel label in 1999, so perhaps Dualtone bought the masters for this album for re-release in 2002. Whatever the case, I’m glad to own the album.
Since the 1979 album with Roland White would not be released for many years, this is Jim’s official first bluegrass album. Since Dr. Ralph is as venerated as any performer in the folk/acoustic/bluegrass field of music, I guess you’d have to say Jim started at the top with his collaborations. Jim and Ralph were familiar with each other prior to recording this project as the two had traded guest appearances on each other’s albums (Lauderdale’s WHISPER and Stanley’s CLINCH MOUNTAIN COUNTRY ).
Lauderdale wrote or co-wrote 9 of the 15 tunes on this album and the originals blend in nicely with the bluegrass canon.
“Who Thought That the Railroad Wouldn’t Last,” the title track and “Joy, Joy, Joy” (co-written with Robert Hunter of the Grateful Dead are up-tempo tunes that allow the Clinch Mountain Boys to show their wares. Two other Lauderdale originals “Another Sinner’s Prayer” and “Like Him,” feature Ralph Stanley , who excels in gospel performances, whether with accompaniment or a cappella.
Since bluegrass audiences always want some of the genre’s traditional fare, there are six classics covered, including “You’ll Find Her Name Written There (Harol Hensley), Maple On The Hill” (Gussie Davis) “What About You” (Jack Anglin, Jim Anglin, Johnnie Wright), “This Home Is Not My Home” (traditional), “Harbor of Love” (Carter Stanley), and ”Who Will Sing For Me” (Carter Stanley).
If you like bluegrass, you’ll love this album. If bluegrass isn’t your thing, you’ll likely still like it, because of the well-crafted songs and the fine vocal pairing. While Lauderdale takes most of the lead vocals, Jim knew even then that there are certain songs that just scream for Ralph Stanley to sing, particularly, and like any dutiful apprentice, Jim lets the master sing the leads on those songs
It is difficult for me to pick out a favorite song but I do have great fondness for the two Carter Stanley compositions. Here’s a sample of the lyrics of “Who Will Sing For Me”
If I sing for my friends
When death’s cold hand I see
When I reach my journey’s end
Who will sing one song for me?
I wonder (I wonder) who
Will sing (will sing) for me
When I’m called to cross that silent sea
Who will sing for me?
Jim is a competent musician, but on this album he and Ralph sing, leaving the instrument chores to Ralph’s Clinch Mountain Boys: James Cooke – acoustic bass & baritone vocals; James Alan Shelton – lead guitar; Ralph Stanley II – guitar & baritone vocals; Steve Sparkman – banjo & James Price – fiddle, mandolin & vocals
This is a solid A. Better yet, another such collaboration would follow.
Our September Spotlight features one of the true Renaissance persons of roots music, Jim Lauderdale. Born in 1957, Lauderdale has a thorough-going knowledge of country, bluegrass, roots-rock, folk and jazz and incorporates elements of all of these into his songwriting and performances. He has performed in theatre, as a member of various bands, and as a solo performer. He has an affable personality and a decent, but not necessarily terrific, singing voice that could, under different circumstances, led him to become a major recording star in the fields of bluegrass or traditional country music. As it is, Jim has had difficulty in receiving airplay for his own recordings and never made much of an impact on radio with his only charted single, “Stay Out of My Arms” reaching #86 on Billboard’s country chart in 1988. If heard at all on the radio, it is most likely to be on bluegrass programs (usually on NPR) or on Bluegrass Junction on Sirius-XM as his duet recordings with Ralph Stanley are quite popular with the bluegrass crowd.
As a songwriter, he has been far more successful with his songs being recorded by many artists across a variety of genres including George Strait, Gary Allan, Elvis Costello, George Jones, Buddy Miller, Blake Shelton, the Dixie Chicks, Vince Gill, and Patty Loveless. I don’t know how many of his songs George Strait recorded, but it is a bunch.
Although not a household name with modern county radio audiences, Jim Lauderdale has been quite busy, co-hosting Music City Roots, the annual Americana Music Awards Show (since 2002) and appearing on various other television shows. He has collaborated with artists as diverse as Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead), Dr. Ralph Stanley, Nick Lowe and Roland White.
Between television and touring, he stays quite busy. We have selected an interesting array of albums to review, so please join us in saluting our September Spotlight Artist – Jim Lauderdale.
Jim Lauderdale, recording once again for Sky Crunch Records, has gifted us with a self-produced double album to follow-up his acclaimed Buddy & Jim duets project from 2012. I’m A Song, his 26th album, spans twenty songs over a single disc of pure honky-tonk bliss with not a clinker in the bunch.
For this project Lauderdale wrote or co-wrote every song, opting to self-pen eight of the album’s tracks. For these numbers he mainly focuses on different aspects of relationships, from the hopeful beginnings of “Lets Have A Good Thing Together” to a woman’s uniqueness in “You’ve Got A Way With Yours.” “There’s No Shadows In The Shade” confronts what we tend to hide from one another in relationships, while the title track cleverly compares a romance to different aspects of a song. All are excellent, with gorgeous twangy guitar, drum, and pedal steel based arrangements that nicely complement Lauderdale’s southern drawl.
Much like “There’s No Shadow In The Shade,” “Hope and Find” has a very modern, and somewhat heavy, accompaniment the builds along with the sinister lyric. “The Day The Devil Changed” is the exact opposite – sunny and bright, despite a lyric about a man’s desire to course correct his troubled past. “We Will Rock Again” closes the album by echoing the honky-tonk beat of opener “Lets Have A Good Thing Together,” but presenting it as straight up rock. The lyric, about endings that aren’t goodbye, is in its chosen spot given its appropriateness as an album ending song.
Lauderdale teamed up with Jimmy Richie and Mark Irwin for “Past It,” in which the guy is eternally hopeful that he and his woman may be over the ‘rough patch that we’re on.’ The jaunty beat nicely aids in his optimism, while his cynical vocal suggests otherwise. Newly minted Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Bobby Bare shares co-writing credits on “This Feeling’s Hanging On,” a glorious straight-up traditional number bursting with steel and fiddle. “End of the World Rag” is one of the louder numbers, a doomsday lament that’s rock in every way.
Odie Blackmon, probably best known for writing Lee Ann Womack’s “I May Hate Myself In The Morning,” collaborated with Lauderdale on three cuts. “Neon Hearts” is a lonely man’s ode to drinking in bars, “Makin’ Honey” is a jarringly happy love song that seems somewhat out of character for the album, and “The World Is Waiting Below” concerns a very happy couple who are so in love they haven’t come down to earth yet. Of these three, which are all good, “Neon Hearts” is a cut above the rest, a wonderful bar song that gets to the heart of why we sometimes just need a stiff drink to wash away our troubles. Matt Warren and Gary Allan (along with Lauderdale) co-wrote “I Wish You Loved Me,” a fabulous honky-tonk number about unreciprocated love.
Womack provides harmony vocals on two of the four duet tracks on I’m A Song. Co-written with Robert Hunter, “A Day With No Tomorrow” is an excellent mid-tempo traditional country ballad about a recently heartbroken man. Even better is “Doin’ Time In Bakersfield” a Frank Dycus co-write about a man behind bars in the aforementioned California city. I wish Womack could’ve done more than harmonize here, making it a true duet, but her contributions only add to the outstanding quality of the track.
A collaboration with Patty Loveless on the self-penned “Today I’ve Got The Yesterdays” is given the same harmonizing treatment as the Womack numbers, and while it’s a great song with a flawless production, I would’ve liked to have seen Lauderdale give her some lines to sing solo. Their voices sound sharp together, too, as the both have distinct twangy vocals that keep them from harmonizing perfectly, like he was able to do with the sweeter voiced Womack. The Buddy Miller partnership on his Elvis Costello co-written “I Lost You” works the best given the format, as they are essentially a duo anyways.
“The King of Broken Hearts,” which George Strait brought prominence with the Pure Country soundtrack and Womack cut on Call Me Crazy gets recorded here by its writer twenty-three years after his original release since that project is long out of print. A staple of his shows and easily his most popular song, its revival here is a welcomed treat.
Most times when an artist opts to gift their fans twenty songs on a single disc, the results are uneven at best, and often wrought with wide sweeps of varying styles meant to please each and every sector of the audience. Lauderdale smartly forgoes that in favor of crafting a pure honky-tonk project as cohesive as any album could aspire to be. While not a fault of his own the track do tend to run together a bit, but the standout numbers (“Doin’ Time in Bakersfield,” “Neon Hearts,” and “The Day The Devil Changed”) stand out loud and clear.
Grade: A
My Kind of Country 