Grammy Winner Jim Lauderdale

The public is welcome, and tickets may be purchased at the gate for $10.

The Jim Lauderdale concert is part of a gala evening planned to launch the Gold Campaign, expected to be the largest capital campaign in the history of Erskine College and Seminary.

Lauderdale, who won a Grammy earlier this year for “Lost in the Lonesome Pines,” his CD with Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, is the son of Erskine alumni Dr. W. Chapman (Chap) Lauderdale (College Class of 1949, Seminary Class of 1952) and Barbara Hobson Lauderdale (College Class of 1951).

The performer moved to Due West with his parents in 1970, when he was 13.

"I haven't really had a chance to give back to Due West and to Erskine and I thought this would be a good time to do that," Lauderdale said.

"The committee for Memorial Hall, Erskine's music building, thought it would be good for Jim to play at the kickoff event for the Gold Campaign," said Lauderdale's father, a member of the Alumni Board at Erskine.

The school's music facility is one of a number of facilities, programs and scholarships at Erskine that will benefit from the Gold Campaign, further details of which will be announced at the Oct. 23 kickoff.

"It's my alma mater and all my siblings came here, six of us. My father is a graduate of Erskine," said the elder Lauderdale, whose wife is a retired church musician and school music teacher.

He believes the Gold Campaign will enhance Erskine's music program, which already attracts talented new students each year.

Jim Lauderdale, who composes and performs music and appears in stage productions, said living in the small college town stimulated both his interest in music and his desire to perform.

"If we hadn't moved to Due West, I don't think I would have developed those interests and instincts," he said. "As I've traveled around, I've come to value and appreciate more and more the people I grew up with in Due West. I think that being in Due West and being close to the college shaped me in so many important ways."

Lauderdale recalls opportunities at Erskine that expanded his musical world, from the variety of music on the Erskine campus to the students, professors and friends who encouraged him.

"I went to many of the concerts at Erskine, and even watching some of the plays on campus developed my interest in performing," he said. "I guess the first play I was ever in was a student production of “Tommy” at Erskine — I pretended to play a pinball machine."

Lauderdale appeared in several Erskine productions, including the musical “Brigadoon” and Mozart's “Così fan tutte,” and said he also tried another kind of performing at Erskine when he was in the eighth grade.

"I volunteered to be a disc jockey at WARP, which was the Erskine College radio station at that time," he said. "That broadened my musical horizons a lot — it was not just bluegrass and country."

Lauderdale's father recalls that his son was interested in all sorts of music on the Erskine campus, from coffee house music to the performances of the Erskine College choir, the Choraleers.

"When I first moved to Due West I played drums a little bit, and I started playing harmonica," Jim Lauderdale said. "I remember Davey Grier [now a history professor at Erskine] played guitar and that inspired me to pick up a guitar."

Erskine was a comfortable place for the young Lauderdale. "The students were always very nice to me," he said. "My sister Becky [now a Christian education director in Roswell, Ga.] was a student at Erskine and she was influential on my music collection up to that point."

As the son of an Associate Reformed Presbyterian (ARP) minister, Lauderdale also spent time at Bonclarken, the denomination's camp and conference center in Flat Rock, N.C.

"He worked at Bonclarken in the summers and I remember he decided he wanted to take banjo lessons," Lauderdale's father said.

On one occasion, Lauderdale heard a North Carolina bluegrass band called "Chicken Hot Rod" perform on the Erskine campus.

"I really was impressed," he said. "There's something about bluegrass music -- if it moves you it really ends up having an effect on you."

He recalls that another Due West friend, Ed Long, lent him a copy of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” an album featuring such famed musicians as fiddle player Vassar Clements, Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs.

After completing a year of middle school and two years of high school in Due West, Lauderdale had learned enough about music to know he wanted to learn more.

On the advice of a public school teacher he met while working at the Flat Rock Playhouse near Bonclarken, he applied to the Carolina Friends School near Chapel Hill, which had a strong arts program, and finished high school there.

"Something inside was motivating me," Lauderdale said. "It was by no means a rejection of Dixie High School or Due West. It was a calling to get that musical training that I needed."

"It worked out fine," Lauderdale's father said. "It was a marvelous school, and he made a good many contacts there with local musicians."

In addition to spending time at home during school holidays, Lauderdale made at least one memorable trip back to Erskine and Due West.

"I got to come back and perform in the coffee house at Erskine when I was a senior in high school," Lauderdale said. "That was a big thing for me to be able to do."

Lauderdale went on to earn a bachelor’s degree at the University of North Carolina School for the Arts, and according to his father, he had some success even at the very beginning of his career.

"He started getting some gigs," he said. "He was asked to join a musical, “The Cotton Patch Gospel,” by Harry Chapin."

The elder Lauderdale recalls that his son appeared in “Pump Boys and Dinettes,” spent time in cities from New York to Hollywood, and got his first record contract.

He toured with Mary Chapin-Carpenter and made a popular music video with her.

"He was focused on his music and remains focused on it," the elder Lauderdale said. "You really have to love it, because it's a strenuous life."

Eager as he is to use his talents, maintaining a balance is important to Jim Lauderdale, and he works at it.

"I would say that it is an ongoing process because the music business is in a constant state of change," he said. "There are a lot of hardships and sacrifices and in some ways I don't recommend it, but you will know if you really must do it as your career."

For aspiring musicians, Lauderdale passes along wisdom imparted to him by a friend about 20 years ago.

"When I mentioned something about wanting to make it in the music business, he said, 'You've already made it because you can sit and play your instrument and sing something you enjoy and that other people will enjoy.'"

Lauderdale also advises everyone, not just musicians, "Don't lose sight of your family and friends as you build your career — don't forget your loved ones."

As if to demonstrate his point, he lists some friends from his Due West days, including — in addition to Davey Grier and Ed Long — Todd Carlisle, Peter Morrison and David Romein, all either Erskine alumni themselves or related to Erskine alumni, professors or staff members.

A growing reputation as a songwriter, success as a performer, and a Grammy award -- all this started for Jim Lauderdale in Due West and on the campus of Erskine College.

"I find I'm coming back more and more as the years go by," he said. "I realize how fortunate I was to have spent those years there."

In case of rain, the concert will be moved to the Galloway Center on the Erskine campus.