Paul Szmal: Finger Lakes Country WFLR there's Jim Lauderdale off country super hits valued to there's everybody's got a problem now that's Americana Jim Lauderdale of course coming to the 34th annual grassroots festival of music and dance he's performing July 16th that I believe six o'clock you'll be performing actually the 17th I've got you on the list for this July 17th at 6 o'clock you'll be on the main stage how you doing Jim
Guest: oh I'm doing great Larry how are you doing
Paul Szmal: I'm doing awesome it's just I love this festival because it's so unique that you get to co-write with a Grammy Award winner a three-time Grammy Award winner you teaching this year
Guest: well you know I'm hoping to Larry they rotate the folks and but I'm gonna talk to Tara from Dawn of the Buffalo today to see because I really want they had scheduled some other people and I also teach a Tai Chi warm-up class which I really enjoy doing so I saw them recently and got to do a gig with with them and Tara was saying boy I hope we can work that out for the culture camp they have this three-day camp right before the festival which is really great
Paul Szmal: yeah I mean it's so cool because like we do Tai Chi in the morning with you then there's like all kinds of different workshops for songwriters and instrumentalists and all kinds of great things
Guest: yeah it's really unique yes and I I enjoy when I'm not when I'm you know after my classes or in between taking other classes to enrich my musical abilities I really enjoy taking with Richie Stearns his claw hammer class
Paul Szmal: oh wow boy Richie what a what a national treasure he is
Guest: yeah and so yeah so it's really great I'll tell you Dawn of the Buffalo they're real visionaries and I mean to to have started that festival there that and to you know they're on the road so much they make such great records do such great shows and the Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival has really broadened my musical horizons so much I mean they bring in so much world music and I get to see so many great local bands and you know it's just you know the Native American artists they bring up you know it's just it's just a really really different and and wide-ranging musical festival
Paul Szmal: nice I'm sure you get to run into a lot of your friends they're gonna be there too like the Del McCurry band and Rihanna Gideons
Guest: Wow yeah yeah yeah and you know it's it's they do cover that wide variety of artists and I know Jeb and you know he's a big fan of John Anderson for instance he had him up there and I was so bummed because I had an early flight from Nashville to get up there a day early to see George Jones play
Paul Szmal: oh wow and of course as it would will happen with flight sometimes my flight got delayed hours and hours and hours and so I got there that night and George had already played that afternoon so I didn't get to see him and that was one of his last performances was up there
Guest: Wow so I appreciate that so much that he gets country artists up there and well Jim not just country and bluegrass but I'm really excited to see 81 year old Taj Mahal perform
Guest: yes yeah absolutely and he was there what two years ago I believe it was it might have been three I think was three and I got to do yeah I got to do a thing in San Francisco in January where they had this tribute to him and all sorts of folks were there Steve Van Sant it was Van Morrison and yeah Taj is still sounding great and so that is really really gonna be special to have him
Paul Szmal: nice well tell us a little bit about country super hits volume two what can our fans expect out of this one
Guest: well this one is now of course the name country super is tongue-in-cheek I'm trying to be funny a little bit because these songs were never released before but I just you know thought hey if I was having hits on country radio what would a good compilation of songs of mine that haven't been released from different times over the years fit in and so I feel like this is a good thread of songs some of them are a few years old some of them are like I did do a country super hits volume one she did 20 years 20 years ago and there's a couple of songs from that era that's just like hey I love this song but there's not enough room on this album so I saved them and then there's some newer ones like a song called artificial intelligence it's funny I'm that's the one I'm gonna play it next I don't think there's been a country song about it
Paul Szmal: nope nope you're the first I just thought I'd put that out there you know for but yeah and it's it's a pretty heavy pedal steel which is an instrument I love so much there's a lot of pedal steel on there and it's you know it's basically a traditional style country album
Guest: yeah that's awesome I mean you've written songs for legends like George Strait and Patti Lovelace do you write differently when you're writing for someone else as opposed to writing for yourself
Guest: well yes I try to in some ways channel them or think about you know what what can I hear them saying what you know what I think about them and and what and realistically what they might tackle now interestingly enough though it when I try to do that to pitch songs to artists nine times out of ten they don't record those songs but they will record something that was kind of a last-ditch thought of like well I've tried it all of this stuff I've written with them in mind and I just recorded this one I might have what do I have to lose I might as well send it over and that happened many times with George Strait and also Patti Lovelace for instance recorded Halfway Down which I do with Donna the Buffalo and which I've never released on an album but I kind of you know pitched it to her several years ago as a last-ditch thing and also the song she did with George Jones You Don't Seem to Miss Me I was gonna put it on a country album for RCA when I was with them and they really liked the song and I was at a meeting with Patti Lovelace and her husband and producer Emery Gordy jr. and I said well how about this one and gave him a CD and Emery looked at us like yeah yeah we've heard that one and I thought oh my gosh I'm like this isn't I was saying this is terrifying I don't have anything else I can think of so I played them You Don't Seem to Miss Me which actually it turns out that's another song I do with Donna the Buffalo nice and and so she they really liked it and my record company RCA at the times I said look I'm in a predicament they want to record this and they said go ahead go ahead I'm glad I'm real glad they did because it was great to hear their two voices together George Jones and Patti
Paul Szmal: yeah no doubt I mean you've worked with everyone from Robert Hunter to Elvis Costello to Buddy Miller is there anyone on your musical bucket list that you'd like to work with that you haven't yet
Guest: um you know I would love to but this will never happen but I'd love to somehow write with Bob Dylan but I know that's never gonna happen the other things that'll probably never happen was I'd love to record with Paul McCartney and Ringo and then I did get to sing harmony with Keith Richards on a Graham Parsons tribute concert a couple of them so that was on my bucket list but I'd love to record with Keith Richards and Nick Taylor the old guitar player for the stones before Ron Wood came in so those are some those are some folks I'd love to work with
Paul Szmal: very nice old Jim Lauderdale of course performing at the 34th annual grassroots festival of music and dance taking place July 16th through the 19th Jim will be there on the 17th for tickets go to grassroots fest org and of course for country super hits volume 2 head over to Jim Lauderdale music.com Jim thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you in a couple I see in July
Guest: okay I'm looking forward to it and thanks so much
Paul Szmal: absolutely it's great to talking with you and thanks for all you're doing thank you we appreciate it and let's play some more awesome Americana here's artificial intelligence it's Jim Lauderdale on Finger Lakes Country WFLR
