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Jim Lauderdale
Headed for the Hills
(Dualtone)
First Appeared in The Music Box, September 2004, Volume 11, #9
Written by John Metzger
Robert Hunter may be the most underappreciated lyricist in America. Although
his knack for spinning yarns about life and love easily equals that of Bob
Dylan — who, incidentally, has performed several of his songs — Hunter’s general
avoidance of the limelight has relegated him to the status of a well-kept
secret. Some of that has changed since the untimely death of Grateful Dead
guitarist Jerry Garcia, largely because mainstream critics have fallen all over
themselves in an attempt to find something nice to say about a band that they
long despised and misunderstood. Yet, in the grand scheme of things, Hunter
remains a relatively unknown commodity, despite his contributions to a variety
of other artists over the course of the past decade.
Like Hunter, singer/songwriter Jim Lauderdale also has struggled for
attention in the increasingly homogenous and superficially glossy, pop-oriented
market for country music. There’s little doubt that artists such as George
Strait, Kathy Mattea, and Vince Gill have had more success with his songs than
he has, but rather than peddling something with which he isn’t comfortable in an
attempt to fit inside the industry’s pre-defined box, Lauderdale has opted to
broaden his scope and work outside the system. The world is better for it, too,
particularly since his previous outing Wait ’Til Spring, recorded with
jam band favorites Donna the Buffalo, injected his wonderful gift of song
writing into a community that desperately needed it — even if the final package
was a little less than perfect. Just a few years earlier, he had been dabbling
in hardcore bluegrass with Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys.
Is it any surprise, then, that the restless Lauderdale and prolific Hunter
would one day collaborate on an entire collection of songs — rather than the
smattering of tunes that have popped up here and there over the years — or that
the union would prove to be such a towering success? Indeed, after listening to
Headed for the Hills, one can only wonder why this pairing took so long
to come to fruition considering that the lyrics, melodies, and arrangements
concocted by the duo and co-producer Tim Coats seem so perfectly suited to one
another. Augmented by an all-star cast that includes Emmylou Harris, Tim
O’Brien, Allison Moorer, Bucky Baxter, Gillian Welch, Buddy Miller, and a host
of others, Lauderdale deftly navigates the venerable terrain, coloring Hunter’s
lyrics with a gentle bluegrass strum and a dusky country twang as he skips from
the blues-based title track to the playful lilt of Trashcan Tomcat, from
the gospel-hued harmonies that shade Looking Elsewhere to the soaring
elegance of Tales from the Sad Hotel. The cover of the album features an
old automobile with a license plate that reads "JLRH1," offering hope that
additional material will be forthcoming, but even if a sequel never appears,
Headed for the Hills will stand as a rich and rewarding slice of Americana,
one that features some of the most relaxed, accessible, and consistently
affecting interpretations of Hunter’s material since the days of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. 
Headed for the Hills is available from
Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
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For UK orders, please
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2004
The Music Box
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