Jim Lauderdale answers audience questions about songwriting (and conducts a brief comic mock-interview with himself) during this Songwriter Session at the Museum, held on September 24, 2016, during the annual AmericanaFest. Steel guitarist Tommy Detamore joins Lauderdale on three songs, and the program ends with an acoustic favorite.

Lauderdale begins with his definition of Americana music and notes, “When a song comes to me, whether it’s a co-writing thing or if I write it alone, it is different every time. I don’t really have a particular technique for writing. . . . It could be a phrase, for instance. Somebody might say something that triggers some kind of an idea.”

He says he writes many of his songs when he has a recording project looming, then performs the title track of his 1998 album, “Whisper.”

Discussing his time on a major label, Lauderdale says he was disappointed that things didn’t work out, but that it did lead him to writing with Harlan Howard and Melba Montgomery. He remembers how a casual remark in conversation with Howard led them to write a song together called “You’ll Know When It’s Right.”

Lauderdale talks about his 2016 album, “This Changes Everything,” and performs one of its songs, “Drive,” which he wrote with Hayes Carll.

After an extensive Q&A with the audience, with topics ranging from his “songwriting antenna” to landing his first George Strait cuts, Lauderdale concludes the program by singing “The King of Broken Hearts.” The title, he notes, was inspired by a quote attributed to his musical hero, Gram Parsons, as the latter was describing George Jones. Strait recorded the traditional-sounding song for the massively popular “Pure Country” soundtrack released in 1992.

FOR MORE

Explore the Museum’s public programming: https://countrymusichalloffame.org/plan-your-visit/exhibits-activities/public-programs/

FOLLOW THE MUSEUM

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/OfficialCMHOF/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/countrymusichof/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/countrymusichof