JIM LAUDERDALE – country super hits vol.1 / bluegrass

(CD, Yep Roc)

The titles of these records say it all: a forgotten hero of the best age of country-rock and that is usually right now and here. Mostly because nothing ever changes in the country-world, and sometimes you might think that is good just the way it is. If it weren’t for the heartache and the violence. And for always the wrong people getting all the fame and money, while those that work at their own vision or dig for the true heart of country at the deepest place in the mine are always left out. But people like you and me are trying to find the true heroes, aren’t we? If you think about getting out and getting some of the real, old-time country rock then right now is about the best time you could that. Anytime is about the best time, so right now is the best indeed. It’s all coming back, I betcha.

Jim Lauderdale writes and plays crunchy, straight forward and beer-drenched country-rock, that is equal parts counry-radio and old-time honkytonk, equal parts insurgent country played in a dingy roadhouse and dressed-up stage show with the funny country-suits and boots, equal parts in front of the rocker crowd and in front of the old time’s good ol’ boys. Most of these songs the Great Crusades whished they could do. If you are in an adjoining room you might mistake these songs for Steve Earle in his more mellow phases, late Seventies Kris Kristofferson or mid-Eighties Don Williams. If you are in the same room you’ll hear the unique drawling and voicing of this artist. The melodies work themselves right into your hearing easily and they sound as if you had heard them a hundred times before. Which is the best thing you can say about songwriting in a genre that is so confined and narrow yet so full of depth and truth as country music. Jim Lauderdale seems to shake these melodies from his boots like other people shake off dust.

Sometimes Lauderdale gets closer to Glen Campbell (e.g. “That’s why we’re here”) than he might like to himself, but it shows that he is able to pull of the country-crooner with the big jazzy arrangements stuff just as well as the honky tonking or the bluegrass things. Then there is a wonderful beer-crying song like “I met jesus in a bar” or “Playing on my heart strings” and all of that is forgotten. You’ll grant him the radio hits if he gives you some of the true heart-wreckers and beer-brawlers at the side.

On “country super hits” are the country-rockers, recorded with a full band, including electric guitars and drums and all that stuff. On “bluegrass” are the, of course, bluegrass songs with banjo, violin and acoustic guitars. But actually the different styles of recording don’t do much difference to the punch and the energy of these tracks. If you are more in a traditional mood, go and take a whiff of bluegrass. If you are more in a modern mood you might prefer the “super hits”, but actually each song could be on either of the albums (albeit with different recordings to adhere to the basic principle.) You know the deal from Steve Earle’s excursions with the Supersuckers on the on and the DelMcCoury-Band on the other hand. After all, it doesn’t take more than a handful of chords and some imagination to come up with a decent song.

I have my own theory about why Jim Lauderdale never made it as big as his (and mine) own heroes and it is all about the sideburns. They are just too short. His music makes sideburns grow like rain does grass, but his own are just too short. Look at Don Williams or Tom T. Hall or Buck Owens to see what I mean. Of course, throughout the Seventies to the Eighties country style was different, more tolerant towards sideburns than nowadays. The Langford-portrait on the cover of “Bluegrass” might help, though. But, as they say, lost souls take their own time.