A Conversation with Jim Lauderdale  (continued)

PM: One of the fun things about The Other Sessions is that it was recorded over time, and used quite a number of great players.

JL: Like Roy Huskey Jr...[the greatly missed late legendary string bassist]. I still have some things in the can that I will dole out. He's on this record, and will be on the next as well.

PM: You're such a prolific writer, you must have a ton of material on tape awaiting release.

JL: Yes, I do. I always think of my demos as being records. I started thinking that way when I realized that I had a lot of tunes on tape that made me think "I really can't record this any better than I have right here. The magic is there."

PM: The first time.

JL: Right. So that's kinda my philosophy on recording and demos. And Robby Turner is on the record. [Waylon Jennings' steel player]

PM: He cut most of the steel, right?

JL: Yeah. Bucky Baxter plays steel on one cut, Pat Buchanan plays guitar a lot.

PM: Let's talk about Pat Buchanan, come on. He's amazing on that record.

JL: Oh yeah. He is.

PM: You gotta call him, in a town full of great guitar players, Nashville's premier cross-stylist. Nobody can play through all the different styles like Pat. Rock, Pop, Jazz, Blues, Country. He's probably got Classical chops that nobody knows about.

JL: I agree.

PM: I thought that was really cool, that you used Buchanan on that record instead of the first four or five guys that might have come to mind. I never knew he was a great country player, too.

JL: We've been working together now for seven or eight years. Billy Bremner, who used to be with Rockpile, was playing a lot with me, but he ended up moving out of the country [to work with The Pretenders]. Then Pat came along, and I started using him pretty much all the time. I use Allison Prestwood a lot [on bass].

PM: She's fabulous.

JL: Oh yeah. And Greg Morrow, John Gardner, and Billy Thomas on drums.

PM: Can't find a better singing drummer than him.

JL: Oh God, he's great. And Stan Lynch [from The Heartbreakers] is on one cut.

PM: How did that happen, is he a buddy from L.A.? Is he a nice guy?

JL: Very nice. No, we had met, and people were trying to hook us up to write. I was over at his hotel room writing, we didn't get the song finished, but he said if I was ever in the studio and he was around, to give him a call. So I called him the next day, and he came down and cut it.

PM: Was he a little more heavy handed, or?

JL: No, he's on the song "Honky Tonk Haze."

PM: Oh, that's a great feel on that.

JL: There's a song "What's On My Mind"...

PM: Boy, I love that song.

JL: Thanks. That was kind of the pivotal song, that made me decide to do The Other Sessions before I put out this next record which I'd finished shortly before I compiled The Other Sessions. Some of the songs on The Other Sessions were several years old, but they didn't fit on Persimmons or Whisper, or Onward Through It All. They could have fit on Whisper, actually, but I had too much stuff. I'd gone in and cut new stuff for Whisper with Blake Chancey, and some of those I wanted to leave like they were. So Luke Wooten produced that song "What's On My Mind" that I cowrote with Leslie Satcher. That's Sonny Garrish on the steel for that tune. Leslie and I finished that song, and I was thinking, "Gosh, you know, there's just not enough Hard Country stuff out there."

PM: It was funny what you said on your website, about not wanting to do a "progressive eclectic acoustic bluegrass type record."

JL: Well, hopefully you'll like the next one too, because that will probably be a neo-neo eclectic mixture of styles...it will feature Tony Rice and Sam Bush. There'll be some electric bluegrass, no banjo on there, and some Grisman-like swing. There's actually some jazzier stuff, which I don't think I've done before. And I cut an old-timey song as well, with some of the Donna the Buffalo guys. It's got Tim O'Brien playing fiddle, clawhammer banjo...

PM: Who's playing clawhammer banjo?

JL: The keyboard player from Donna the Buffalo. That was cool, and the first time I've cut a song like that.

PM: Who is Leslie Satcher, exactly? [the cowriter of "What's On My Mind"]

JL: I'd been hearing about her for a long time, and had heard her songs. I did this Gram Parsons Tribute gig at the Exit/Inn, where they also had a record release going on for her. She was also performing, and I met her that night. I was really blown away by her, and I mentioned that people had been trying to put us together to write. When we got together, that was the first song we wrote.

PM: That's my favorite song on the record.

JL: Thanks, I love that song. So, that began a great collaboration between us. We just wrote something this week, and demoed it yesterday. She's just an amazing vocalist, she has so much soul. Terrific to see live. Leslie is from Paris, Texas. She's got a great album out on Warner Bros. You'll be hearing a lot about her. She wrote that recent Martina McBride single, "When God Fearing Women Get the Blues," which I think is a really creative song. And I'd call her Hard Country. I think she's gonna do real well.

PM: I'm sorry to say that so far I only own your last two records though I aspire to own all of them now. How many of them have you worked on with your coproducer Tim Coats?

JL: Three. Onward Through It All, The Other Sessions, and one called Persimmons.

PM: I've read about Persimmons, that sounds like a great record.

JL: That's kind of pushing the edge of alternative country, though I don't know what that term really means. It's got 5 different steel players on it, Al Perkins, Dan Dugmore, Bucky Baxter, Robby Turner and Tommy Spurlock, plus Billy Bremner and Roy Huskey Jr. are on it.

PM: It sounds like an unusually tight relationship you have with Tim Coats.

JL: Well, unusual, yes. [laughter] Yeah, we've been working together now about ten years. A woman at Bluewater, Pat McMurray, was my song plugger at the time and she said, "We want you to start doing stuff [recording demos] here in town, when you're visiting." Because I was still recording a lot on the West Coast. I'd go over to Buddy Miller's place when he lived in Pasadena, and different studios. I call his studio House of Buddy, but he always calls it Dogtown. Anyhow, so Pat McMurrray turned me on to Moondog Studios.

PM: Was that when Bucky Baxter was the owner?

JL: Bucky was partners back then with Garry Tallent, [the great bass player from Springsteen's E Street Band] and some other people. Then Garry ended up taking the whole thing over. Garry's also on The Other Sessions, Persimmons, and Whisper. The very first tune I did there, I was on a plane from L.A. to Nashville, and I got this melody going, and finished it when I got to town. Moondog had just opened, so I got Bucky to play guitar and steel, Garry, and Dave Durocher on drums [a mutual friend who's now the head of Bug Music, a big publisher in Nashville], and we cut a song called "This is the Big Time." Then I wrote a couple of other things kind of on the fly.

PM: Right then and there, on the spot?

JL: Yeah, just kinda came up with a melody, and finished the lyrics while we were in there. That day began a long, unusual relationship... Tim's got great instinct, and knows me inside out. I count on him to get the right guys for the songs we're cutting, though sometimes we'll discuss that together ahead of time. Although he's younger than me, he's still a guy I look to for advice about life, personal or music questions. He's always got a definitive answer, where I'm more wishy-washy.

PM: I'm a big fan of Carter Wood, who cowrote "Don't Make Me Come Over There (and Love You)." How about a few words on her, and that particular cowrite.

JL: Sure. People had been saying that we should get together and write, and then I met her at this health food restaurant, before it went out of business.

PM: They just can't keep one open in this town, what the hell is up with that? If Wild Oats [a huge health food store] has stayed open, they should be able to keep a health food restaurant going, right?

JL: Yeah, exactly, I don't get it, either. So we got together and started a song, and I knew it was going to work because we started a song, but we still haven't finished that song. But we moved on to other stuff, and I feel like everything we've written has been really good, and should be cut. We've written about ten songs together over the last two years. I think the last time we wrote was last Spring, 'cause I've been on the road and practically out of commission since then.  continue

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