One of the most respected songwriters in the suddenly-chic genre called Americana had been chasing the dream of a recording deal ten years when he finally found success through the backdoor to Nashville at age 35.

Jim Lauderdale, 57, who visits Dosey Doe's satellite Music Cafe in Conroe Friday night, struggled for a decade in New York -- even working as a messenger for Rolling Stone magazine -- and Los Angeles before finally hitting the big time in 1992 when two of his songs, "King of Broken Hearts" and "Where the Sidewalk Ends"" from his first album Planet of Love, were selected by Tony Brown and George Strait for the soundtrack of Strait's movie, Pure Country.

The North Carolina native, who majored in drama in college, had already cut his first album, The Point of No Return, for Columbia in 1990 but it was shelved (although later released once Lauderdale had some success).

"It was a Bakersfield sound album and they just never had faith in it doing anything, that old 'too country' thing," says Lauderdale. "I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, but I definitely wasn't going over commercially in country music."

He moved on to Reprise Records, which released Planet of Love in 1991. While that album, produced by Rodney Crowell and John Leventhal, did not chart or catch on with country radio, it did get Lauderdale's songs placed with up-and-coming publishing company Bluewater Music, which was owned by Houstonian Brownlee Ferguson.

"My manager took them Planet of Love and Brownlee liked it, so they signed me and took over my catalog," Lauderdale recalls. "I was attached to their Nashville office, but I was still living in L.A. at the time, still just wanting to be a major-label recording star."

Reprise wasn't interested in recording another album, but with Strait recording two songs from Planet of Love, Lauderdale's career options looked brighter than ever. Atlantic Records took a chance on him, releasing Pretty Close to the Truth (1994) and Every Second Counts (1995). Though both are rock-solid in hindsight, neither album charted and he was released again. His recordings may have been going nowhere, but Lauderdale's songwriting income was exploding as Vince Gill and others took notice.

"Vince putting "Sparkle" on his Pocketful of Gold album was a huge break for me as far as Nashville recognition," he says. "That made me so much more visible as a writer."

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