THE EVOLUTION OF JIM LAUDERDALE

His main goal has always been to write great songs. As he drops his 35th album, Game Changer, the Americana stalwart is learning to be a better guitarist.

- JIM BEAUGEZ

IT’S UNCOMMON TO find a veteran musician who has earned two Grammy awards, made 35 solo albums and amassed a Rolodex filled with first-call players, and who also readily volunteers his shortcomings at his craft. But revered Americana singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale has elevated the practice of politely deflecting praise to an art. Over a series of video calls from his Nashville home, he is careful to acknowledge the players who showed him licks and tricks and played on his records. “I still have so much to learn,” he admits, a sentiment he repeats during our conversations.

Lauderdale isn’t being coy. While guitar and banjo are only two of the many instruments he can play, he skipped the guitar lessons and learned to play the six-string by ear, intuition and feel. As an adherent to the singersongwriter traditions of Gram Parsons and John Prine, his main goal over his four decades of playing music professionally has been to write compelling songs.

“Once I started writing songs in my late teens, it became a real obsession, and still is,” Lauderdale says. “Songwriters like Dylan, Robert Hunter, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, Lennon-McCartney, Jagger-Richards and Gram Parsons — I gained so much inspiration from them, and they inspire me to try to improve constantly.”

Lauderdale is a chameleon of American roots music and the common denominator among some of the biggest names in the musical styles grouped together as “Americana.” He’s collaborated with Ralph Stanley and Buddy Miller, co-written with Grateful Dead lyricist Hunter, and recruited Luther and Cody Dickinson of North Mississippi Allstars to produce and play on his records. He takes the same approach with guitar players: Only the best will do.