Country Artist Has Bold Landing in ‘Planet of Love’

Legend has it that the late country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons used to initiate new friends by spinning George Jones discs. And as the masculine emotions of those country records filled the room, Parsons was inevitably moved to tears, finally mumbling, “That’s the king of broken hearts.”

Jim Lauderdale has a similar sort of reaction while listening to Emmylou Harris, who was Parsons’ regular singing partner in the early ‘70s. Perhaps it’s fitting that Harris and a couple of former Parsons sidemen joined Lauderdale to record “The King of Broken Hearts,” his tribute song to Jones and Parsons.

Parsons, the former member of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, was 27 when he died of a drug overdose in 1973 after creating a new hybrid of American music that would later influence such artists as Dwight Yoakam, Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, Rodney Crowell and, now, Lauderdale.

“There’s something about his soulfulness that I relate to,” Lauderdale said. “It just touches me.”

The tribute appears on Lauderdale’s new “Planet of Love” album, the first full-length release from the Hollywood-based country artist. The album was recorded in Nashville with producers Crowell and John Leventhal, and offers an alternately confident and melancholy mix of honky-tonk, blues, rockabilly and the Bakersfield sound popularized by Buck Owens.

An added ingredient is an often adventurous sensibility, as evidenced by the record’s noticeably untraditional title, which offers country listeners a rare, if romantic, trip into science fiction. Lauderdale’s smooth and warm delivery, combined with some slow rockabilly chords, had Leventhal convinced that the “Planet of Love” title track could be a successful country single.

But the singer wondered if the song was the right introduction to a sometimes conservative country audience. “You have to be established first, or they’d just think I was some kind of nut,” Lauderdale said.

The song’s simple message of romantic escape is “wishful thinking on my part,” he added. “I’m not trying to hammer anybody over the head with some big statement, but it’s just a wonderful image, a wonderful dream.”

Lauderdale was now sitting in a dark Hollywood coffeehouse, sipping iced tea as the jazzy pop of Sting played over an unseen stereo. This was his first visit here, though he wasn’t likely to return, since his request to switch to a Muddy Waters cassette he’d brought along was ignored by the counterman.

Inside the black bag at his feet was a portable tape recorder he carries to capture his sudden song ideas, whenever and wherever they might come. “I’m trying to keep up with my writing,” he said. “If you do too much of the business side of things it’s really unsatisfying, and you lose your perspective. This is a pretty tough business, and the music is what keeps me sane through it.”

Born in North Carolina, Lauderdale first emerged in the Los Angeles country scene after years struggling to establish a music career in New York. He landed on the West Coast about five years ago to play guitar and sing in a local production of the musical “Pump Boys and Dinettes.” And while in town, Lauderdale happened to catch local country-rock heroine Rosie Flores at Club Lingerie.

“I thought I was going to be out here for two months,” he remembered. “The first month I actually wasn’t happy out here because I’d made up my mind I wasn’t going to like it. The turning point came when I saw Rosie play. I realized there was some pretty cool music happening here.”

Soon, Lauderdale was performing his own local club gigs, where he was eventually noticed by musician-producer Pete Anderson. This, in part, led to the inclusion of a Lauderdale track on “A Town South of Bakersfield Vol. 2,” another in a series of albums designed to spotlight the new country sounds then coming out of Los Angeles. From the first volume had emerged Yoakam, who also shared many of the artists’ focus on the “new traditionalism” in country music.

“There’s something just about the environment that kind of brings out that raw, stripped-down sound,” Lauderdale said of the local movement.

A year later, Lauderdale was recording an album to be titled “Point of No Return” with Anderson. That debut was never released by his former record company, although the singer-songwriter still hopes to see it put out sometime in the future.

In the meantime, Lauderdale’s songwriting skills were being noticed by other artists and producers. Some of his material has since been recorded by such popular young country artists as Vince Gill and Kelly Willis. And the subsequent exposure led Warner/Reprise Records to sign Lauderdale for “Planet of Love,” with another album already due this February.

“I’m just chomping on the bit to do another album and get on the road,” he said. “There’s a lot of waiting that goes on.”

In the meantime, he’ll be staying around Los Angeles. “There’s still a small, but potent number of bands that live in Southern California,” Lauderdale said. “Nashville, of course, is the center of the industry, the main nerve center. But Buck Owens and Merle Haggard and Dwight Yoakam all lived out here and did fine.”

CLUB JAMS: The local shows of the Capitol Homeboyz have been known to attract the unannounced participation of such notable talents as Slash of Guns ‘N’ Roses. But the band’s own mix of blues and rock already attracts a crowd. The quintet--featuring drummer Jimmy Griego, bassist Vince Bilbro, keyboardist Teddy Andriatis, guitarist Chuck Kavooris and Jimmy Z. on saxophone, harmonica, flute and vocals--performs Monday at FM Station, 11700 Victory Blvd., North Hollywood. Call (818) 769-2220.