R. Hutchinson | a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds | 04/08/2000
(4 out of 5 stars)
"ONE ENDLESS NIGHT is another beautiful record from Jimmie Dale. Buddy Miller does a superb job of co-production. My favorite track is "Goodbye Old Missoula," which I heard on the radio while waking up one morning shortly after 6 AM before the album was released -- an incredible song. I have one reservation, though, about the return to a mainly traditional sound on this album, the same basic sound found on AFTER AWHILE (1991) and SPINNING AROUND THE SUN (1993).
It made me mad when I learned that in some quarters J.D.'s last album, BRAVER NEW WORLD (1996), had been savaged because it departed from "what a Jimmie Dale Gilmore album is supposed to sound like." BRAVER NEWER WORLD is a stunning album, incorporating Beatles-esque pop (see my review), and I personally like it better than this new one -- T-Bone Burnette's production is fantastic, and in retrospect it is the powerful completion of a '90s trilogy on Elektra following AFTER AWHILE and SPINNING AROUND THE SUN. I hope Jimmie Dale will return to a broader pallette of sounds in the future, and not be stifled by narrow-minded critics and fans."
A Revelation
Bruce Kendall | Southern Pines, NC | 07/18/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I came across this album listening to samples at a local music store. As soon as I heard the first few chords and the raw, unaffected voice coming through the headphones I was hooked. Listening to this album is akin to reading Lonesome Dove for the first time. It is genuine and unadulterated, as Texas was before high rises and shaky banks. True Americana, like pure cajun, blues, gospel or Appalachian Spring. My only wish was that this guy would become as popular as all those Nashville, dime-a-dozen cut-outs that sell millions of albums year in and year out. Jimmie Dale Gilmour is a true troubador of sagebrush and melancholy. He's a poet in other words and can play guitar like an angel. Like another reviewer here, I just hope his other albums measure up to this one, because I've discovered a new favorite."
Hallelujah, Back to the Basics
Bruce Kendall | 03/02/2000
(4 out of 5 stars)
"A welcome return to form after the extremely overproduced and disappointing "Braver Newer World". Moving off of a major label seems to have freed JDG up to record the songs he loves to sing (many selections here will be very familiar to those who have seen him live over the last several years), and the results show him to his best advantage. This is an incredibly strong selection of songs played well and sung better (both by JDG and an alt-country fan's dream lineup of backup vocalists). There is plenty of the high lonesome mystic prairie folk cowboy stuff that JDG does so well on display here, but the most pleasant surprise is the expansion of his sound to incorporate a few songs that unequivocally and convincingly rock (including the sizzling Townes Van Zandt cover and a bonus track that's actually worth listening to). My only complaints are the intrusive drumming that mars a few cuts, and a slight letdown over "Your Love Is my Rest", one of my all-time favorite John Hiatt songs, which has been recast here as sort of a West-Texas power ballad. That being said, there is nothing that stops me from wholeheartedly recommending this album."
Gilmore puts the "Western" back in C & W music
mork | 03/04/2000
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Before country music became all about the Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain and Garth Brooks (quality performers all ... if you think quality and unit sales amount to the same thing), it used to be called Country & Western music.
This terrific collection of songs performed with heartfelt honesty and effortless grace by Jimmie Dale Gilmore harkens back to the now-missing second portion of that musical equation. If you like your songs superlative, your arrangements simple and your singers sincere, you're a candidate for being wowed by this throwback artist, whose nasal twang and obvious earnestness just might be able to cure even the most hidebound cynic. "Ripple" and the title cut are the best of a stellar bunch."
So Breathtaking, You Can't Help But Exhale
Don Thomason | Dunbar, KY United States | 08/21/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Possessor of one of the most unique voices in all of music, Gilmore puts together a stellar release for his own label. Co-producing with Buddy Miller, Gilmore collects songs by John Hiatt, Butch Hancock, Willis Alan Ramsey, Jesse Winchester, the Grateful Dead, and others - and made each song his own. It's the space he puts in recording that give the songs a big impact, allowing his mysterious high plains voice room to infuse his tales of romance, dust, and loss. On his ghostly version of "Mack the Knife," the air is laced with the chill of the assassin's presence. Other tracks like "Banks of the Guadalupe" and the title song seep into you and allow you to exhale, comfortable to the very soul. Gilmore's sense of lyrical profundity among common themes shines brightly on the Townes Van Zandt gem "No Lonesome Tune" (currently my favorite cut on the CD). If this is not Gilmore's best album, it's in the top two."