Jimmie Dale Gilmore - Jimmie Dale Gilmore (1993/2020)

For his second solo record, Jimmie Dale Gilmore brought steel guitarist, coproducer, and fellow Texan Lloyd Maines with him to Nashville in 1989, resulting in an album that fuses Gilmore's dreamy "cosmic cowboy" progressivism with good, old-fashioned honky-tonk (both heavy-grinding Nashville style and nimbly swinging Texas style) and a tinge of rockabilly. Gilmore revisits his own Flatlanders contribution "Dallas" and adds two other originals, two songs from buddy Butch Hancock, and two he cowrote with Hancock. In many ways, Jimmie Dale Gilmore builds important musical bridges, bringing together both the fans and the sounds of stone traditional country with those of rootsy, twangy 1980s rock. It also presages the "alternative country" movement, not so much sonically but psychologically, helping to redefine both audience and performers of soulful, honest country music. --Marc Greilsamer