30 Facts About Jim Lauderdale

James Russell Lauderdale was born on April 11,1957 and is an American country, bluegrass, and Americana singer-songwriter.

Jim Lauderdale's father was born in Lexington, VA, the son of Reverend David Thomas and Sallie Ann Lauderdale.

Jim Lauderdale's father was a noted minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

Jim Lauderdale too sang in his early years, and learned the drums at 11, the harmonica at 13, and the banjo at 15.

Jim Lauderdale has cited the influence of Ralph Stanley and bluegrass music from an early age.

Jim Lauderdale played a variety of music, including bluegrass, Grateful Dead, and folk in a duo with best friend Nathan Lajoie as a teenager.

Jim Lauderdale remembers enjoying the album Will the Circle be Unbroken by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Neil Young's Harvest.

Jim Lauderdale attended the Carolina Friends School in Durham NC and then went on to the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC, studying theater.

Jim Lauderdale played in country and bluegrass bands during college.

Jim Lauderdale hung out a lot with Roland White, an accomplished mandolin player, with whom he cut a record.

Jim Lauderdale played in Miller's band in the active twang music scene that was evolving at the time.

Jim Lauderdale often was assigned to pick up and drop off photographer Annie Leibovitz's equipment.

Armed with a catalog of a few hundred songs he had written, Jim Lauderdale was able to get a publishing deal with a small company called Blue Water Music.

Jim Lauderdale then got a publishing deal with Reprise and moved into the second floor of Buddy and Julie Miller's house until he got his own place in Nashville.

In 2013, Jim Lauderdale started his own record label, Sky Crunch, so that he could release his many albums on a schedule that suited him.

In 2013, Jim Lauderdale released Old Time Angels and his first solo acoustic album, Blue Moon Junction, followed by Black Roses, with the North Mississippi All-Stars.

Jim Lauderdale appears on Laura Cantrell's 2013 release No Way There From Here.

Jim Lauderdale has toured with Elvis Costello, Rhonda Vincent, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and others.

Jim Lauderdale wrote and produced two bluegrass records with Ralph Stanley.

Jim Lauderdale said they recorded it in three days in Miller's home studio.

Jim Lauderdale has often collaborated with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter.

Black Roses features North Mississippi Allstars' Cody and Luther Dickinson, whom Jim Lauderdale met in Nashville at the Americana Music Festival, as well as Muscle Shoals musicians Spooner Oldham and David Hood.

Jim Lauderdale says that they have more material that might make a good follow-up album, and hopes they will have time to collaborate again soon.

Jim Lauderdale performed solo as the opening act for Nick Lowe on the latter's 1995 tour of the US and Europe with the Impossible Birds.

Jim Lauderdale later recorded with longtime members of Lowe's band and other British musicians at London's Goldtop Studio, sessions resulting in the 2017 album London Southern.

The term "the Jim Lauderdale Phenomenon," coined by singer-songwriter Kim Richey and cited in an April 2000 article in The Tennessean by writer Peter Cooper, is an ironic reference to the fact that Lauderdale was nominated for a Grammy for his work with Stanley but was released from a record deal with RCA not long after.

Jim Lauderdale has hosted the Americana Music Awards since winning their first Artist of the Year and Song of the Year awards in 2002.

Jim Lauderdale was a judge for the second, 10th and 11th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.

Jim Lauderdale hosted "The Jim Lauderdale Show" on WSM Radio.

Jim Lauderdale is a frequent host and performer on "Music City Roots", a weekly Americana music show web-streamed live from The Factory at Franklin just outside Nashville.