Jimmie Dale Gilmore (born May 6, 1945) is an American
country
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, whi ...
singer, songwriter, actor, recording artist and producer, currently living in Austin, Texas.
Lubbock, Texas
Lubbock ( )
is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the nort ...
. His earliest musical influence was
Hank Williams
Hank Williams (born Hiram Williams; September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential American singers and songwriters of the 20th century, he reco ...
and the honky tonk brand of country music that his father played. In the 1950s, he was exposed to the emerging rock and roll of other Texans such as Roy Orbison and Lubbock native
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer and songwriter who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born to a musical family in Lubbock, Texas ...
, as well as to
Johnny Cash
John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his c ...
and
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the " King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His ener ...
, the latter two being in the line up at a concert he attended on October 15, 1955, at Lubbock's Fair Park Coliseum. He was profoundly influenced in the 1960s by
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
and
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
and the
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...
and
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...
The Flatlanders
The Flatlanders are an American country band from Lubbock, Texas, United States, founded in 1972 by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock. The group garnered little success during their brief original incarnation from 1972 to 1973, but ...
. The group has been performing on and off since 1972. The band's first recording project, from the early 1970s, was barely distributed. It has since been acknowledged, through
Rounder
Rounder(s) or The Rounder(s) may refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Rounders'' (1914 film), a comedy short
* ''The Rounder'' (1930 film), a comedy short
* ''The Rounders'' (1965 film), a western comedy
* ''Rounders'' (film), a 1998 poker f ...
's 1990 reissue (''More a Legend Than a Band''), as a milestone of progressive, alternative country. The three friends continued to reunite for occasional Flatlanders performances, and in May 2002, released a long-awaited follow-up album, ''Now Again,'' on New West Records.
After briefly attending
Texas Tech University
Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sy ...
, Gilmore spent much of the 1970s in an
ashram
An ashram ( sa, आश्रम, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions.
Etymology
The Sanskrit noun is a thematic nominal derivative from the root 'toil' (<
Denver, Colorado
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, studying
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
with teenaged Indian guru
Prem Rawat
Prem Pal Singh Rawat (born 10 December 1957), formerly known as Maharaji, is an international speaker and book-author. His teachings include a meditation practice he calls "Knowledge", and peace education based on the discovery of personal re ...
, also known as Maharaji. In the 1980s, he moved to Austin, where his first solo album, ''Fair and Square'', was finally released in 1988.
Gilmore's fans admire his tenor voice, which delivers expressive, pure, country-inflected singing.
In 1994, Gilmore teamed up with
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album ''Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of ''Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and ''Stardust'' (1978 ...
to contribute "Crazy" to the AIDS benefit album ''
Red Hot + Country
''Red Hot + Country'' (or ''RH+C'') was the follow-up to ''No Alternative'' in the Red Hot Series of compilation albums, a series produced to raise awareness and money to fight AIDS/HIV as well as other related health and social issues. This comp ...
'' produced by the Red Hot Organization.
Gilmore appeared as himself in Peter Bogdanovich's 1993 film '' The Thing Called Love'', a love story about young songwriters in Nashville. He also had a small but memorable acting role in the 1998 movie '' The Big Lebowski''. He portrayed a bowler named Smokey, an aging, emotionally "fragile" pacifist threatened with a pistol by Walter Sobchak, "The Dude" Lebowski's best friend and sidekick (
John Goodman
John Stephen Goodman (born June 20, 1952) is an American actor. He gained national fame for his role as the family patriarch Dan Conner in the ABC comedy series '' Roseanne'' (1988–1997; 2018), for which he received a Golden Globe Award, ...
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
, and the ''
Fresh Air
''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to ...
'' radio program with
Terry Gross
Terry Gross (born February 14, 1951) is an American journalist who is the host and co-executive producer of '' Fresh Air'', an interview-based radio show produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and distributed nationally by NPR. Since joining N ...
. Gilmore's son,
Colin Gilmore Colin may refer to:
* Colin (given name)
* Colin (surname)
* ''Colin'' (film), a 2008 Cannes film festival zombie movie
* Colin (horse) (1905–1932), thoroughbred racehorse
* Colin (humpback whale), a humpback whale calf abandoned north of Sydney, ...
, is also a singer–songwriter based in Austin.
Gilmore's song "Braver Newer World" is featured in the 1995
Noah Baumbach
Noah Baumbach () (born September 3, 1969) is an American film director and screenwriter. He is known for making witty and intellectual comedies set in New York City and has often been compared to writer-directors such as Woody Allen and Whit St ...
film '' Kicking and Screaming''. In 2005, Gilmore released ''Come on Back'', an album of songs his father loved. Gilmore said of the album, "This new album is a compilation of recordings of some old songs that my dad loved. I love them too, and it is a project very dear to me." His version of " Mack the Knife" from the album ''One Endless Night'' is on the soundtrack of Jacques Audiard's 2009 film, ''
A Prophet
''A Prophet'' (french: Un prophète) is a 2009 French prison crime film directed by Jacques Audiard with a screenplay by Audiard, with Thomas Bidegain, Abdel Raouf Dafri, and Nicolas Peufaillit, from a story by Dafri. The film stars Tahar Rahi ...
'' (Un Prophète).
Gilmore has been nominated for three Grammys, Best Contemporary Folk Album for ''Spinning Around The Sun'' in 1993, Best Contemporary Folk Album ''Braver Newer World'' in 1996, and Best Traditional Folk Album ''Come On Back'' in 2005."Recording Academy Grammy Awards" Grammy.com, Retrieved Feb. 14, 2018.
Discography
See also
*
Music of Austin
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
* ''In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music'', Nicholas Dawidoff, Vintage Books, 1998. .
* ''Fire in the Water, Earth in the Air: Legends of West Texas Music'', Chris Oglesby, University of Texas Press, 2007. .