Jimmie Dale Gilmore

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Jimmie Dale Gilmore is a singer—which is not to say that he has an unpleasant voice. (You can hear more than a little echo of Roy Orbison in his singing; and there was a singer with some pipes!) It is the voice of a man who has something to say and a convincing, authentic way of saying it.

Gilmore’s sound hearkens back to early country—to his namesake, Jimmie Rodgers, and to the Carter Family, Ernest Tubb, and Hank Williams. You can hear that in his music—plus honky-tonk, white gospel, Texas swing, the south-of-the-border influence, Cajun, even Chicago blues. Gilmore grew up in that generations-old melded tradition. His father—the one who named him after Jimmie Rodgers—was a fine amateur guitar player who loved country music but whose radio played all those related channels. Gilmore has for nearly four decades continued to polish and burnish that musical heritage. As he sings, “I don’t know where I’m going, but I know where I’ve been,” and “When a treasure’s yours, no need to steal one.”