Rating:
Genre:
Country
Release Date: 08/16/2005
Jimmie Dale Gilmore's first two albums were high-spirited
honky tonk sessions that owed more to the great Texas dance hall tradition than the Zen cowboy leanings of
Gilmore's masterpiece, 1991's
After Awhile. To many listeners it probably seemed that the latter album was a more personal and heartfelt project than his earlier sides -- but then again, maybe it wasn't.
Come on Back,
Gilmore's seventh solo album, is a set of covers very much in the spirit of his debut set,
Fair and Square, but a reading of
Gilmore's liner notes offers a wealth of perspective on what these songs mean to him.
Come on Back was recorded in tribute to
Jimmie Dale's late father,
Brian Gilmore, an amateur guitar picker who, as his son puts it, "accorded one class of people an exalted level of esteem that bordered on reverence" -- musicians and songwriters.
Brian Gilmore loved the great
country songs of the 1940s and '50s, which
Jimmie Dale describes as "simple, well-crafted, unpretentious little gems from a wonderfully creative period in American commercial music." And while
Jimmie Dale Gilmore may not have written a note of music on
Come on Back, his performances of these songs, which speak clearly of the complexities of life and love as expressed in simple but eloquent terms, never fail to hit the proper grace note. This disc's many lovely moments document not just how
Gilmore's love for this music was passed on to him by his father, but how the lessons he learned from his family are reflected in the home truths of these tunes. None of this is to suggest that
Come on Back is a dark, or morbid record; the joy in this music is palpable,
Gilmore is in superb voice on these sessions, and
Joe Ely's production is as fine as it is unobtrusive. Though he's a gifted songwriter,
Gilmore has always been a fine interpretive singer as well, and the full depth of his vocal talent is on display on
Come on Back -- without reading his deeply moving liner notes, this sounds like an excellent collection of classic
country and
folk standards. Listen again after reading his essay, and you hear a tribute to a life well lived, and the many ways his father's life shaped his own.
Come on Back is a quietly extraordinary album, and
Gilmore's finest work since
After Awhile.
~Mark Deming, All Music Guide
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