Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown

My apologies for the Sunday Music feature appearing on Monday afternoon! But that’s kind of how things are this summer—& it is, as they say, “all good”.

We finish our look at the music of Jimmie Dale Gilmore with a relatively recent performance of one of his original Flatlanders songs. Gilmore also recorded a version for his 1991 Elektra release, After Awhile.

In the video I’ve included with this post, Gilmore is joined by Butch Hancock, another of the original Flatlanders, & their sons. For those who just want the song & not the banter beforehand, skip ahead to 5:00 minutes into the video—but you’ll miss a wonderful conversation between Gilmore & Hancock if you do.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this look at Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s music, & that it’s inspired you to look more deeply into his work & the recordings of the Flatlanders as well. We’ll return with a new featured artist in August—& will make every effort to post the Sunday Music features on Sunday.

Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:

Photo of Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Colin Gilmore at Deep Eddy Pool in Austin Texas, June 2004. Photo by Steve Hopson. More information about photographer and other images at Stevehopson.com. Steve Hopson makes this image available under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license.

My Wildest Dreams Grow Wilder Everyday

Welcome to the Sunday Music feature on Robert Frost’s Banjo. Today we continue our July appreciation of Jimmie Dale Gilmore.

So far we’ve featured performances that highlight Gilmore’s strengths as a ballad singer, & those strengths are considerable. But Gilmore has always had an appreciation for honky tonk country music, & both his own compositions & songs he’s covered reflect that. Here he is fronting the Flatlanders band in full honky tonk incarnation; the Flatlanders are of course Gilmore, Butch Hancock, & Joe Ely (& various friends over the years). As one pressing of their original recordings pointed out in its title, the Flatlanders are in many ways “More a Legend than a Band”, as all three founders have gone on to successful solo careers & collaborations with other musicians. But fortunately for us, the Flatlanders also still perform together with both new & old material.

Hope you enjoy the music! In other news, I’m hoping to get the blog back up to something resembling a normal schedule in the next week.

Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:

Dust over Lubbock, Texas. Taken from the sixth floor of the Biology building at Texas Tech University, 21 March 2013. Photo by Fredlyfish4, who makes it available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0International license.

Just a Wave, Not the Water

We return to our series on Jimmie Dale Gilmore with another live performance. Backed by Bill Frisell on guitar, Jerry Douglas on Dobro, & Viktor Krauss, Gilmore gives us a beautiful version of Butch Hancock’s heartbreaking “Just a Wave, Not the Water”. Indeed, Gilmore has recorded this song on two different albums: his 1988 High Tone release, Fair & Square, & also Spinning Around the Sun, which was released in 1993 on the Elektra label. On the AllMusic site, Mark Deming characterized the latter version of Hancock’s song as “near-definitive”.

Hope you enjoy the music.

Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:

Galveston Island State Park — on Galveston Island along Galveston Bay, on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Skies over park's beach and the Gulf of Mexico. 12 January 2014. Photo by Yinan Chen. Per Wiki Commons: “This file has been released explicitly into the public domain by its author, using the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication. This file may be used for any purpose including unrestricted redistribution, commercial use, and modification.”

Another Colorado

We return with more Jimmie Dale Gilmore for our Sunday Music series.

Today’s video features Gilmore in a solo setting performing his song “Another Colorado”. Gilmore describes the lyrics as “enigmatic”, but they’re also fun & wise, & the melody is beautiful. Just a lovely rendering of this composition, which can be found on his 1993 Elektra album, Spinning Around the Sun.

Hope you enjoy the music.

Image connects to its source on Wiki Commons:

"Postcard photo of the California Zephyr on Denver & Rio Grande trackage along the Colorado River in Western Colorado. In this segment of the journey, the train was headed by Denver and Rio Grande locomotives."

Public domain per Wiki Commons.

Deportee

July is upon us, & so we’re introducing a new feature artist for the Sunday Music series. & it’s a bit of a shift from the music we’ve been featuring, as July’s artist is none other than the great Jimmie Dale Gilmore, founding member of the Flatlanders, a uniquely gifted singer & songwriter who works in the Americana sound—or as some have said, in “Country & Eastern music”, given Gilmore’s penchant for mysticism.

Today’s selection is from an eTown concert that paired Gilmore with Dave Alvin (with eTown’s Nick Forster on mandolin), & it showcases Gilmore’s terrifically soulful voice in his beautiful reading of Woody Guthrie’s song “Deportee” (music by Martin Hoffman). Of course no one needs to be reminded of the current relevance of this moving song.

The performance itself starts at 1:30, but what Gilmore has to say in the opening minute & a half is both interesting &—to my mind—important, so I invite you to listen to the entire video.

Hope you enjoy the music! I look forward to bringing you other selections showcasing Gilmore’s talents as both a singer & songwriter throughout the month.

Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:

Jimmie Dale Gilmore performs at the 2014 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, 5 October 2014. Photo by David Becker [link provided for this user at Wiki Commons is empty], who makes it available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Internationallicense. 

Get Together

The performance starts at about 1:25, but I’d invite you to stick around for the opening remarks by Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore. For more Jimmie Dale Gilmore, be sure to check out the Sunday Music feature tomorrow & throughout July.

Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:

Peace art (collection of stones) in Näckrosen metro station, Stockholm. Photographed in April 2013. Photo by Sigurdas, who makes it available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unportedlicense.