Jimmie Dale Gilmore,
a shooting star of a songwriter out of Lubbock and Austin, brings
his national tour to Vashon under the sponsorship of Vashon Allied
Arts, with the helping hand from an old Islander friend.
Carrying the big
guns of a smoking guitar, a riveting voice, and a repeating rifle
of bull's eye lyrics, Gilmore travels the wide open ranges of
American music. He roams through country and bluegrass, beyond
folk and spirituals, and on towards rock and roll, honky-tonk
blues, two-step stomp, swing, and even zydeco, single-handedly
dismantling the fences between decades of musical tradition.
Imagine a boy born
to Roy Orbison and Janis Joplin, to Hank Williams and Queen Ida,
Buddy Holly and Buffy St. Marie, Woody Guthrie and Elizabeth
Cotton, a child of Dolly Parton and the Dalai Lama. Roll all
of those sensibilities into one person, and you have some idea
of this man's appeal.
Of Irish and Cherokee
heritage, Gilmore, 53, grew up in that atomic test age when rock
and roll mutated through the radio waves from the delta blues'
romp with traditional folk. His career ignited in the '60s with
a seminal rockabilly band, the Flatlanders. Their album, More
a Legend than a Band, was re-released by Hightone in 1990, when
Gilmore returned to his roots after studying Tibetan Buddhism
and meditation for ten years.
Newly infused with
powerful imagery, primal rhythms, and timeless language, Gilmore's
music caught the attention of David Bither of Elektra records
and spread like wildfire. Elektra produced three recordings in
quick succession, beginning with After Awhile in 1991. Spinning
Around the Sun (1993) and Braver, Newer World (1996) were both
nominated for Grammys in the Contemporary Folk category.
Gilmore was seen
on Austin City Limits and was soon being interviewed by NPR,
Rolling Stone, New York Times, Acoustic Guitar, the Shambala
Sun, and the New Age Journal. No stranger to the Northwest, Gilmore
played Bumbershoot in 1992 and 1995. He opened for Willie Nelson
in Tacoma last March and for Emmy Lou Harris in July at the Pier.
Recently, Gilmore, with his striking good looks, appeared as
a movie actor in The Big Lebowski, and contributed to the soundtrack
of Robert Redford's upcoming film The Horse Whisperer.
In his first acoustic
solo tour in ten years, Gilmore's raw talent will be unembellished
by the syncopated, driving beats of slide guitars, electric basses,
mandolins and fiddles accompanying him on his CDs. Down-home
as could be, in an early morning telephone interview Gilmore
talked shop.
What is it like
for you to play solo?
I was dreading it,
but I've played with bands so much in my recording career that
i forgot how aspects of solo work bring you more a feeling of
community with the audience. I adapt my music. I have a love
for lyrics and melody. The focus on the song allows me to bring
out its emotional quality, not just the trappings around it.
Your music is so
eclectic. How do you define it?
There is something
artificial about trying to pigeonhole music. The first thing
I was around was country. Then I feel in love with rock and roll
but I didn't stop liking country. Some kids my age abandoned
country; some shunned rock and roll, but i loved both. When you
say you love any kind of music, there might be a few songs you
like and some you don't. It's not really a matter of a kind of
music; it's particular songs, the sound, the lyrics, the guitar
licks, a blend of things. Who knows what's going to make you
like it? I had broad tastes. It's a funny quirk of human beings
that they want to generalize.
What direction
are you taking with your music now?
It's always experimental
to me. I just try to get the best people and the best circumstances.
People think musicians act intentionally, on purpose. The experimental
mind really means staying open, nor really having a fixed idea
about what's going to happen.
You have been called
a radical visionary. What does that mean to you?
We live in a time
when ancient wisdom, perennial philosophies, our understanding
about the inner world have come to be neglected because modern
science is so successful in exploring the outer world. But, the
inner world, you have to have it; you go crazy without it. Science
as the only approach to understanding is a mistake.
Gilmore's mystic,
musical cosmology is at once both journey and destination. Come
listen.
And they did come
to listen. Jimmie played to an enthusiastic sold out house on
Vashon Island, WA.
Lynn Carrigan
is a visual and literary artist who plays the guitar and frequently
writes about music from her island home.
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