02.13.2008
Statesville native snags Grammy
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Jim Lauderdale is a frequent performer at MerleFest in Wilkesboro. Photo courtesy of Wilkes Community College. |
When Jim Lauderdale attended the N.C. School of the Arts, he was charismatic and talented enough that maybe some of his teachers might have predicted an Academy Award in Lauderdale’s future.
"Such a possibility would certainly be a matter for heated debate, if not a source of loud laughter for all who taught me,” Lauderdale said yesterday in a phone conversation from his home in Nashville.
It was easy for Lauderdale, a native of Statesville, to joke.
Lauderdale captured his second Grammy award, for Best Bluegrass Album, Sunday night during the 50th Anniversary Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. He won for his album The Bluegrass Diaries. In 2002, he and Ralph Stanley, the bluegrass icon, won a Grammy in that category for their album Lost In The Lonesome Pines.
“No, no, I’m not jaded yet” Lauderdale said, laughing. “I’ve been nominated four times, so I’ve lost as many as I’ve won. And that I’ve won any at all, much less have been nominated, is still something that leaves me shaking.
“It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I was sitting in my dorm room at the School of the Arts, playing banjo, badly, or going to The Philosopher’s Club (a defunct local club) to try out my songs.
“Even when I was supposed to be acting, I was always playing music on the side,” said Lauderdale, who attended the School of the Arts from 1975 to 1979. “Once I graduated, music just seemed to be my natural inclination.
“Besides, there’s no lack of drama in the music business.”
Lauderdale is considered one of the top songwriters in Nashville. He has written big-hit songs for George Strait, the Dixie Chicks, Patty Loveless, Mark Chestnut, Vince Gill and Blake Shelton, among others.
Lauderdale has released a number of solo albums that crossed genres to great critical acclaim. And he is considered one of the godheads of the roots-music Americana movement, having worked with everybody from Emmylou Harris and Dwight Yoakum to Buddy Miller and Victoria Williams.
“It’s been a long haul, but it’s always been a gratifying experience,” Lauderdale said. “And it really did all start when I was in Winston-Salem, playing guitar at school and hanging out with the local musicians.
“That I have been able to do anything to give back to musicians of Winston-Salem and the School of the Arts makes me happy and proud.”