JIM LAUDERDALE & THE GAME CHANGERS/TYLER-JAMES KELLY

For a man about to put out his 37th album, Jim Lauderdale still has the glimmer in his eye of the young man who first made his way to Nashville back in 1979. Actively writing and recording music for the past four-plus decades, Mr. Americana—as Lauderdale has grown to be known around town—has fine-tuned his brand of country music, taking influences from his upbringing in the Carolinas, the bluegrass and string music of surrounding Appalachia, the folk and Grateful Dead catalog of the 60s and beyond, and the twanging, honky tonk of the town he’s long called home and distilling them into a sound distinctively his own. The second you hear it, you know it’s Jim.