Two-time GRAMMY® Award-winning American music icon Jim Lauderdale’s new bluegrass album, When Carolina Comes Homes Again, is out now on Yep Roc Records.

Recorded at Echo Mountain Recording in Asheville, NC, in conjunction with Come Hear NC, his 33rd album is a return to his geographical and musical roots paying homage to his native North Carolina harkening back to the earliest music he learned to play. 

Featuring instrumental accompaniment from various members of North Carolina-based acts, including Balsam Range, Cane Mill Road, Hank Pattie & the Current, John Stickley, Songs From The Road Band, Steep Canyon Rangers, and Town Mountain; as well as Matt Pruett (banjo); Pattie Hopkins Kinlaw (fiddle); Aaron Ramsey (mandolin); Nick Dauphinais and Presley Barker on guitars.

The album includes notable co-writes including John Oates on the title track, the late Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter on, “As A Sign,” Songs From The Road Band bassist Charles R. Humphrey III (“Misery’s Embrace,” “The Last To Know,” “You’ll Have To Earn It”), Steep Canyon Rangers banjo player Graham Sharp (“It Takes One To Wonder”), Logan Ledger (“Better Than You Found It”) and Sara Douga (“I’m Here To Remind You”)

“North Carolina has such a long and important heritage in bluegrass music,” Lauderdale says. “Since it’s where I’m originally from and where I started playing bluegrass, it seemed right to go back to my roots in bluegrass there and collaborate with musicians in that area. There’s just something in the atmosphere there. Hearing bluegrass in different areas and settings in North Carolina, the music is just there in the air. The first bluegrass festival I ever went to was Union Grove when I was 14, and it blew my mind. The music got into my bones, and I just had to get a banjo.”