Jim Lauderdale – The Hummingbirds / Jim Lauderdale, Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys – Lost in the Lonesome Pines

Jim Lauderdale already had The Hummingbirds in the can last year when, at the last minute, he decided to go back to the studio and record an entirely new album. The result was The Other Sessions, a superb collection of tear-in-your-beer country songs. While The Hummingbirds lacks that disc’s focus, it’s no less satisfying. Contemporary yet firmly rooted in tradition, The Hummingbirds is pop-country the way it should be: smart, tasteful, original, and a little twangy.

Lauderdale wrote or co-wrote all of the album’s thirteen songs, most of which explore life’s little ups and downs. He sings love’s praises in the upbeat “There And Back Again”, hits the road in the poignant “I’m Happiest When I’m Moving”, gets cynical in the jazzy “It’s A Trap”, and faces the inevitable breakup in the wistful “Let’s Not Say It’s Over”. Accompanying Lauderdale are some of the best musicians in the business, including guitarists Pat Buchanan, Kenny Vaughn and Tony Rice, bassist Tony Garnier, mandolinist Sam Bush, and singers Emmylou Harris, Julie Miller and Bekka Bramlett.

If anything has prevented Lauderdale from becoming a bigger star, it’s his George Jones-meets-Greg Allman voice, which has plenty of soul but is a little too quirky for the mainstream. However, it’s just about perfect for bluegrass, a genre that has long embraced singers with unconventional pipes. (Think of Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Red Allen, Del McCoury, and Lester Flatt.) On Lost In The Lonesome Pines, his second collaboration with Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys, Lauderdale sounds as if he was born to sing mountain music. Even more impressive is his ability to write songs, either by himself or with partners like Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, that seem to come from some ancient, dust-covered songbook.

Take the eerie opening number, “Deep Well Of Sadness”, about the fleeting nature of morality. Lauderdale and Stanley bend and twist their voices in unison as they wail, “Oh the deep well of sadness/Lower down the bucket on the chain/Draw up the clear, dark water/Then lower down the bucket once again.”

Other standout tracks include the rousing “Zacchaeus”, a cousin to the Stanley Brothers’ “Daniel Prayed”; the lovesick “I Think Somebody Better Come Back Home”; and the humorous “She’s Looking At Me”. The album’s one cover song, Bill Monroe’s “Boat Of Love”, which features the Stanley Brothers’ longtime band member George Shuffler on bass vocals, is right at home in the company of Lauderdale’s timeless originals.