#jimmy dale gilmore

[mywifeleftme]

169: The Flatlanders // The Odessa Tapes

The Odessa Tapes The Flatlanders 2012, New West

A Cliff’s/Cole’s/Spark’s Notes on the Flatlanders: Texan trio of songwriter’s songwriters (Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, and a nascent Joe Ely) form combo, head to Nashville to record impossibly sublime album (All American Music) in November 1972 that is (barely) released on 8-track cassette after would-be single “Dallas” flops. The album is forgotten, the band splits, its three core members build respectable careers. As the Americana scene they’d somewhat presaged takes shape, the Nashville recordings are sporadically re-released (most notably on Rounder’s More a Legend Than a Band) and the Flatlanders retrospectively find themselves one of the most critically celebrated country acts of their era.

The Odessa Tapes are an even more forgotten batch of recordings than those Nashville sessions, cut in January of the same year as a demo for Plantation Records. The tapes were rediscovered in the 2000s and released by New West in 2012 and, despite the years of neglect, they sound astonishing—to the point you could make a case that they represent the band’s definitive statement. The material is largely the same as that found on the later sessions, though four songs appear here for the first time (“Number Sixteen,” “Shadow of the Moon,” “I Think Too Much of You,” “Story of You,” all superb). These renditions have a honeyed warmth unto themselves, like the feeling in your muscles when you sink into a good chair. All American Music was marketed as Jimmy Dale Gilmore & The Flatlanders, and to my ear at least it’s mixed and arranged to subtly emphasize him as ‘the star.’ Here, their trademark harmonies sound closer and more balanced, the pace a tad mellower, the guitars absent the Nashville sessions’ very slight commercial sheen. Reasonable people can differ as to whether All American Music’s accoutrements (e.g. Steve Wesson’s musical saw) add welcome variety to these simple, elegant songs, which admittedly are all pretty similar in structure, but you can’t go wrong with either set.

Speaking of structure, it occurs to me I’ve structured this review badly, gotten a little deep into the minutiae of comparing versions of songs there’s a good chance you’ve never heard before. So, let’s say this of the Flatlanders: they harkened back to pre-1950s country and bluegrass, had those singers been raised Buddhist rather than Baptist. In place of Christian melodrama (sin, shame, redemption), their songs have a wry philosophical resignation, gazing through the big Texas Panhandle sky over the fence line at the turning wheel of dharma. With the exception of the full-on spiritualism of “Bhagavan Decreed” (an extraordinarily poetic set of lyrics by Austin musician Ed Vizard), they don’t front with the cosmic stuff: it’s on your tenth or hundredth listen to these sentimental, homespun songs of steadfastness and fidelity that lines like “the universal law needs no revision” and “this world’s just not real to me” and “I guess I should be flyin’ ‘cause it’s killin’ me to run” start clicking together.

I’m sure I have a hundred top ten albums at this point. But if one of those sickos with a desert island / turntable situation put a cruise missile to my head, it’d be hard to imagine going a lifetime without hearing the Flatlanders again. And if I had to pick just one of theirs, it’d be The Odessa Tapes.

169/365

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: 10,000 Maniacs feat. David Byrne - “Jolene” (Live)

David Byrne didn’t know what to do with himself when he joined 10,000 Maniacs for “Jolene” during the band’s famous “MTV Unplugged” gig. So, while he may have been strumming an acoustic guitar, he sung but a couple of words.

No matter. Natalie Merchant had things under control. She didn’t over sing it, nor did she try to emulate Dolly Parton. Merchant simply did Merchant and did so splendidly.

And now that the song is out to preview the Maniancs’ MTV Unplugged (Expanded Edition), the only question is: what took so long?

Following the template that marked the balance of Merchant’s swan song with the Maniacs, “Jolene” is one of three bonus tracks - Iris DeMent’s “Let the Mystery Be” and Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s “Dallas” are the others, also with Byrne - that’ll appear on the puffed-up album, set for a Sept. 6 release.

Every note - false starts, do-overs; everything - from the sessions that produced 10,000 Maniacs’ MTV Unplugged should come out. This is a good start.

Grade card: 10,000 Maniacs feat. David Byrne - “Jolene” (Live) - A

7/23/24

[upperswampmonkey]

Jimmie Dale Gilmore - Mack The Knife

[rolloroberson]

The Flatlanders

[danu2203]

CHOOSING ONE CD RANDOMLY FROM SIX OF ELEVEN TOTES CONTAINING CDS...LISTENING THIS WEEK...GLADYS KNIGHT AND THE PIPS, PINK FLOYD, ARETHA FRANKLIN, JIMMIE DALE GILMORE, STEPPENWOLF, ANGIE STONE...

[americanahighways]

Music & Book Reviews: ‘Talking Heads: 77’ Box Set, plus the Flatlanders, a History of Street Singing, and More

Music & Book Reviews: ‘Talking Heads:77’ Box Set, plus the Flatlanders, a History of Street Singing, and More @arlenrothguitar @_caryroo_ @talkingheadsofficial @jimmiedalegilmore @theflatlanders_official @cowsillband #jmkearns #johnhammond #jeffburger #musicreviews

Music & Book Reviews: Talking Heads: 77 Box Set, plus the Flatlanders, a History of Street Singing, and More Talking Heads: 77 ranks among the most striking, fully realized, and important debut albums of the punk/new wave era that spawned it, though it doesn’t particularly sound like punk or new wave. In fact, it sounds like nothing else, before or since, unless you count the group’s own…

[musiconspotify]

Alvin & Gilmore - TexiCali (2024) … keep on rolling …

[fortifiedinsound]

Masterful guitar playing instills in the mind the storytelling the lyrics bring here from this release from June. Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore at their best together.

[howlingmoonradio]

August 24th Playlist

In anticipation of attending their show, we figured what better excuse to spin a few tracks from Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, both solo and collaborative. So that covers Side A. The flip side is the usual hodgepodge of new and old, something from the latest Grace Potter album, Band and Dylan, and a track from a band that we missed from the 90's "Sparklehorse", but plan on digging into now, as the release of the long awaited last album from the late Mark Linkous is due next month.

Side A Howling at the Moon-Hank Williams Here in California-Dave Alvin July, You're a Woman-Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore Just a Wave-Jimmie Dale Gilmore Dallas-Flatlanders Wanda & Duane-Dave Alvin & Guilty Men Downey to Lubbock-Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore

Side B Masterpiece-Grace Potter When I Paint My Masterpiece-The Band Tom Thumb Blues-Bob Dylan Rainmaker-Sparklehorse My Morphine-Gillian Welch Legend in My Time-Laura Cantrell

[julio-viernes]

"Honky Tonk Masquerade" (MCA, 1978), segundo álbum en solitario del tejano Joe Ely es un estupendo disco de country rock, pero este "Boxcars" en concreto me ha dejado tieso por el arreglo tan inusual, en un contexto Campo & Oeste, de esas guitarras eléctricas tratadas. Un potente arreglo muy original y bastante loco, que lejos de atenuarse va en aumento, crece y crece hasta el mismo final. Otro country, el resto del disco es más "normal".

Ely fue la parte rock de los míticos Flatlanders, Butch Hancock la parte folk, y Jimmie Dale Gilmore la puramente country. En 1977 Ely viajó a Inglaterra y conoció a los Clash, que le homenajearon años después en su triple "Sandinista!" en el tema "If Music Could Talk" ("Well there ain't no better blend than Joe Ely and his Texas Men"). En 1981 Joe Ely hizo coros para la famosa "Should I Stay Or Should I Go".

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: 10,000 Maniacs - MTV Unplugged (Expanded Edition)

Though she kind of screwed her bandmates, Natalie Merchant gave 10,000 Maniacs the best consolation prize they’ve could’ve hoped for.

What turned out to be Merchant’s final gig found the Maniacs - augmented with strings, woodwinds, extra singers, guitars, banjo, mandolin and keys - playing “MTV Unplugged” on April 21, 1993. And though their singer was gone by the time it was released, the recording gave the group its most-successful album, a huge hit in the Bruce Springsteen-cum-Patti Smith cover “Because the Night” and what are to many the definitive versions of such originals as “These are Days,” “Candy Everybody Wants,” “Like the Weather” and others.

Twenty-one years down the line, MTV Unplugged (Expanded Edition) revisits the the LP and tacks on three Merchant-David Byrne duets left off the original release.

And while they don’t entirely fit with Unplugged’s sonic motif, the searching agnosticism of Iris DeMent’s “Let the Mystery Be,” Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s country-rock shuffle “Dallas” and Dolly Patron’s “Jolene,” on which Byrne mostly lays out after singing co-leads on the preceding tracks, come at the right time.

And with that, 10,000 Maniacs’ masterpiece is slightly more masterful.

Grade card: MTV Unplugged (Expanded Edition) - A

11/20/24

[amp-mod]

You've Never Seen Me Cry by The Flatlanders

[garudabluffs]

"The Big Bend of the Rio Grande River, which in Mexico is called Rio Bravo Del Norte, is one of the most magnificent geographical features of our world. It is a vast, rugged and beautiful landscape that holds a mysterious attraction for some people. It is the borderland between two cultures, two countries and, in a way, at least two contrasting worldviews. My wife and I have spent as much time there as possible for many years and this song is an attempt to evoke a feeling of the place. A strange sense of something deeply familiar and yet, at the same time, completely alien. Maybe all true love songs are made of something like this". - Jimmie Dale Gilmore

The Musicians: JIMMIE DALE GILMORE: Vocals DAVE ALVIN: Electric Guitar LISA PANKRATZ: Drums, Percussion,BG Vocals BRAD FORDHAM:Bass, BG Vocals CHRIS MILLER: Lead Guitar, Acoustic Guitar BUKKA ALLEN: Hammond B3 Organ

Produced by DAVE ALVIN Written by Jimmie Dale Gilmore and David Hammond