In 2002, Jim also released two albums, The Hummingbirds and Lost in the Lonesome Pines, his second collaboration with Ralph Stanley.  Both albums met with great critical response netting him the 2002 Americana Music Associations� Artist of the Year and Song of the Year (�She�s Looking At Me�), but it was Lost in the Lonesome Pines that received the highest critical acknowledgment when it was awarded the 2002 Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album.  �It was just a great feeling and I was real proud,� Lauderdale said via phone from his Nashville home. �Of course it also goes to Ralph Stanley and all the Clinch Mountain Boys, it�s all of ours and it was just a real emotional thing for me and it�s been a long hard haul in my career, so it was just a real blessing that something so nice happened.�
With the aptly titled Bluegrass, Lauderdale goes back to the music of his roots that he holds dear.  �I actually wanted to begin as a Bluegrass recording artist back when I was a teenager and fate just had it so where it never worked out until I did the records with Ralph Stanley, so it�s just long overdue.  And I plan to do a regular, when I can, a regular Bluegrass release from now on.�
Being such a prolific songwriter, it would be easy for Jim to reach into his backlog and pull out songs from his past Bluegrass endeavors for this album, but he decided against that.  �[The songs] were all just written for this project or one that I wrote with Buddy Miller is one that we wrote a few years ago and he put it on one of his albums and then �Forever Ends Today� that I wrote with John Leventhal, that was a song that we had written several years ago and �It�s So Different� that I wrote with Tony Villaneuva, all three of those songs were actually Country songs, but they really fit into Bluegrass, which, you know, there is still, in Bluegrass, that can work, if the song is traditional sounding.  These days Country, very little of it, has a traditional sound, but there was a time when Jimmy Martin and the Osborne Brothers and Bill Monroe and whoever, they were also on the Country charts.  There was kind of a fine line between, song-wise, between Bluegrass and Country. A lot of them could have gone either way and that certainly was the case with these songs.  Other than that, everything else was written just for the album.�
Lauderdale�s other release comes with the less straightforward title of Country Super Hits, Vol. One.  �Well,� he says with a laugh, �it was kind of tongue-in-cheek, but I felt that the songs that I wrote with Odie [Blackmon], well the whole thing, I thought, these could be hits for somebody.  Since I�m not in that kind of ball field, really, personally, to get on Country radio, they won�t be for me, but, I mean, if things were different, they could be, but that�s not the case for me.  They could be for other people, so it was a tongue-in-cheek thing, a collection of hit songs that could be.�
The album was produced by Odie Blackmon who also served as co-writer on the majority of songs on the album.  The relationship between the two men is one that spans many years.  �He used to come to my shows out in LA, he told me, and I met him then, but I didn�t really get reacquainted with him �til, well it�s been about ten years ago, through Bluewater music, my publisher and we talked about writing, and talked and talked and talked about it, then finally about a year and a half ago we did sit down to write and it was just, to me, like magic,� Lauderdale relates, �It was just a positive, productive turnout of songs that we had and it was just totally natural when we�d get together and sometimes one to three songs would come out per sitting.  And over the course of this time, I think 46 songs that we wrote, and shortly after we started this process of writing together I thought he�d be a perfect co-producer with me.  So, of course, we wrote eleven of those thirteen songs together, so it just worked out really well.�
The only other songwriter aside from Odie to receive more than one credit between the two albums was another of Lauderdale�s longtime collaborators Leslie Satcher, who co-wrote �Who�s Leaving Who� on Bluegrass.  ��Who�s Leaving Who� was one we wrote a few years ago and that�s another song that could go either way, either Country or Bluegrass.�
Satcher also co-wrote Country Super Hits� �I Met Jesus in a Bar.�  �My Dad had gotten ill and passed away very quickly and I was really devastated and the first time I got back to writing songs, Leslie and I got together and we wrote one song, fairly quickly, and she had left the room and when she came back she said she had this great title and it was �I Met Jesus In A Bar,�� Lauderdale recalls, �At first I was, you know, it just didn�t hit me, I just thought, ahh, I don�t know, it seemed sacrilegious or�  but she really encouraged me to go along with writing this and roll with it and I did and this song just unfolded.  It was real emotional for both of us and I really credit her that she, you know� when she gets a strong impulse like that, her instincts are really good, so I�m glad I was able to hold on and finish that with her.�
Another standout on the Country Super Hits is �That�s Why We�re Here.�  With a band sound that, as Jim puts it, is �kind of a Gospel/R&B-ish/Ray Charles type, heavy piano thing,� the song differs slightly from the rest of the album.  �That one with Odie came out really quickly and that�s another one that kind of touches a spiritual note almost,� he relates, �I sang it at somebody�s Wedding, a manager, Charles Driebe, who manages the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, he and his then fianc�, that song really struck them, I had sent it to him a long time ago.  It�s a good song for gatherings, I think, it�s kind of a thought provoking song with a good feel to it.�
{mospagebreak}Being such an in demand songwriter, does he prefer to write as the inspiration strikes or, as is common in Nashville, by appointment?  �Both.  I�ve got a pretty busy schedule and I go in and out of real heavy writing spurts and then just kind of getting timing up with taking care of planning in music biz things.  But the rewarding part for me is the creative process.  I try to devote a lot of time to it, so I guess I am fairly disciplined.  I�ve also written a lot under pressure, going into the studio because I just wasn�t able to find the time or inspiration to get what I needed finished so sometimes my back was just kind of up against the wall and I just had to create under pressure.  So that�s also worked for me, but I don�t prefer that method,� he says with a laugh.
Even after having his songs cut by Country Musics� A-list, winning a Grammy with one of his musical heroes and becoming friends with Legends such as George Jones, Jim still has fantasies of other writing collaborations.  �I�ve always kind of had a fantasy of writing with Bob Dylan, I would maybe be intimidated though,� he says thoughtfully.  �I would like to� same with Elvis Costello.  He was at the Americana Awards show the other night, really a great guy and he really inspires me a lot.  So those are two right there that I would really like to [write with].�
Lauderdale keeps his schedule busy with many projects such as his recent appearance on a show taped in Nashville with Solomon Burke, who recorded one of Jim�s songs on his Buddy Miller produced Nashville.  �I really have so much respect for veterans and elders in our business,� he says.

This respect for what has come before him and the influence of artists such as George Jones, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson shows up in all that he does.  �I�m just influenced so strongly by those guys and of course those guys were really strongly influenced by Hank.  Hank also influenced me a lot.  But then they�ve got Roy Acuff, Hank and Jimmie Rodger was a big influence on those guys.  And then in turn those guys became influences on me.  They�re the kings and the architects to me of today�s Country music.�
He is also working on his next release, which will feature two legendary musicians whom he met during the Gram Parsons tribute show in 2004.  During that show he can be seen singing and playing with several of the acts making the night a milestone for him.  �That was also a real big night for me in life to be around people like Norah Jones and Keith [Richards], just such a hero.  Getting to sing again with Lucinda [Williams] and getting to sing with Steve Earle for the first time was just� and also to be on stage with James Burton, to see him with Al Perkins since they did all that great work with Gram.  Since then I�ve taken Al and James into the studio to cut a lot of stuff and that�s my next project.�
Lauderdale also fills his schedule with producing a few records besides his own.  �There�s a fellow that I�m producing from Haysi, Virginia, which is up in the mountains, kinda near where Ralph Stanley is from in Coburn, about an hour from there and I met him at Ralph�s festival.  His name is Frank Newsome and a fellow named John Lohman and I are producing an album of him.  He just does these accapella Gospel songs and just has such a strong pure voice, talk about making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.  This guy will do that, he�ll just bring you to tears.  That will be coming out with the Virginia Folklife Project Series sometime after the first of the year.  And also Jack Cook, who�s another fellow who I respect a lot, he plays bass with Ralph Stanley and has been with him for years, he�s going to have his first�this is his first album that he�s done on his own, so I�ve got Del McCoury and his band on some of the tracks and Ralph Stanley and his band on several tracks and David Grisman is sitting in on a track, so I�m really pleased about that.  That will also be out in January or February, something like that.�
Whether it is recording traditional Bluegrass music, Golden era sounding Honky-Tonk or preserving the traditions of Mountain Gospel music, Lauderdale feels it is part of his call.  �I think it�s real important to keep doing that in any aspect.  Our culture is just becoming so homogenized that it�s� man, these are our precious treasures we�ve got to preserve.�