Jimmie Dale Gilmore

One Endless Night

Windcharger Music/Rounder

Jimmie Dale Gilmore's voice reminds me of reading the Bible. The speech is so stilted and hopelessly antiquated, it somehow rings poetic. Since 1991's groundbreaking After Awhile, though, the voice and the songs seem to have been either muddled in the mix or overwhelmed by bombast passing for production values. So it is no small pleasure to report that Jimmie Dale, in voice and in presence, has hit higher ground on One Endless Night. It is warm and folksy enough to telegraph his zone of comfort with enough traces of strangeness to make you wonder if he really did have some link to the Lubbock Lights UFO sightings in the early fifties.

Shimmering guitar notes that introduce the title track set a tranquil mood that flows — and I mean flows — into "Down by the Banks of the Guadalupe," a Butch Hancock original that has shot to the top of my list as the most eloquent musical ode to a Texas river I've ever heard. The dreamy vibe holds through Townes Van Zandt's "No Lonesome Tune" and "Blue Shadows," a Jimmie Dale-Hal Ketchum collaboration. Then things get deliciously weird, bouncing from "Defying Gravity," a happy ditty about earthlings and mortality and love (of course), into "Ripple," a Grateful Dead cover that sticks to the original script. Jimmie Dale follows that with "Ramblin' Man," another Hancock gem that captures the genuine spirit of Sun Records-vintage rockabilly, and an epic story-song reading of Tom Campbell and Steve Gillette's "Darcy Farrow." The album closes with a choirboy's rendition of the classic "Mack the Knife," rife with threatening undertones, and another rockabilly scorcher, "D.F.W." ("One stole my mind, the other stole my heart"), adapted from a Lightnin' Hopkins tune. It might not be a work of biblical proportions, but One Endless Night is close enough for me.

Seela

Something Happened

NEWIMPROVEDMUSIC

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Three tracks deep into Something Happened, "Peace of Mind" jolts to a start with a ricochet drum beat. Close behind, electric guitars bleat in accompaniment as Seela begins to sing: "Peace of mind, peace of mind, I've been doing fine without you here." Seemingly nothing special, a simple melody; but behind her, instruments mount a stealthy build, and seconds before the verse ends, the rhythm floor drops out as an inverted fill nails the start of a full band chorus. It's one of those perfect pop moments, one where everything falls into sync, one that delivers a hook you'll never get out of your head, and one that keeps you reaching for the disc. Something Happened is the second CD from this Canadian-born Austin resident. She and her band, particularly guitarist Darwin Smith and drummer Brannen Temple, treat her dramatic new material with flair. It's an ambitious yet uneven effort; quality varies between tracks, guitars step on vocals, and too much of the recording is dirge-slow. Yet the songs and the singer remain compelling and full of mystery. Play it again.

The Big "D" Jamboree Live, Volumes 1 & 2

Dragon Street

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From the late forties into the early sixties, the Big "D" Jamboree was Dallas' answer to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport. Broadcasting live from the Sportatorium on KRLD, the Jamboree was a favored stop for touring stars as well as a launching pad for locals on the rise. Most of the recordings on these CDs come from broadcasts in the late fifties. The highlights of the first disc, "Hillbillies," are two songs by the criminally neglected northeast Texas tigress Charline Arthur, whose throbbing vocals and walking bass lines practically meld honky-tonk into rockabilly. Another regional flash, Taylor's Jimmie Heap and the Melody Masters, offers a small gem in "Carbon Copy." The "Rockabillies" disc opens with Carl Perkins providing the essence of the sound in all its ragged glory for five songs. Among local heroes, only Ronnie Dee (known today as Ronnie Dawson), his impossibly high voice sounding like it's filtered through helium on two Chuck Berry rockers, competes with masters like Perkins and Gene Vincent. The sound on these air checks is crude, but they transport you to a time and place like nothing else.

Slaid Cleaves

Broke Down

Philo/Rounder

Slaid Cleaves is a craftsman. Broke Down, his second national release, is carved and polished just so, the work of someone who has studied his influences: Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Bruce Springsteen. Lured to Austin from Portland, Maine, a decade ago by the work of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, and Robert Earl Keen, Cleaves has soaked up some of that Texas spirit to become a storyteller with a keen eye for character and a spare Hemingway-like pen. Producer Gurf Morlix, who's worked with Lucinda Williams, shares that mind-set, adorning Cleaves's raspy tenor and acoustic guitar with spare organ flourishes (courtesy of Ian McLagan) on the title track and haunting lap steel that fleshes out the lament of "Cold and Lonely." Like Billy Bragg before him, Cleaves sets Guthrie's lyrics to "This Morning I Am Born Again" to a lilting melody, and he ends the album with a sweetly homespun take on bluegrass legend Del McCoury's "I Feel the Blues Moving In." On "One Good Year" Cleaves sings: "I've been chasing grace, but grace ain't so easily found." Perhaps on this album, he has found it.

Little Jack Melody and His Young Turks

Noise and Smoke

Kilroy

Little Jack Melody and His Young Turks' Noise and Smoke (Kilroy), celebrating Texas' most twisted cabaret act, finally captures the group in its element (i.e., recorded live)

Catfish, Carp, and Diamonds: 35 Years of Texas Blues

Catfish

Catfish, Carp, and Diamonds: 35 Years of Texas Blues (Catfish), a survey of homegrown sounds recorded by folk scholar Tary Owens, includes tracks by the Grey Ghost, Mance Lipscomb, and Dave Tippen, an elderly prisoner who delivers a heart-wrenching performance recorded behind prison walls.

Los #3 Dinners

Quiero Un Camaro

#3

Quiero Un Camaro (#3), by Los #3 Dinners, marks the first recording in more than a decade by San Antonio's loosest garage band.

Mean Gene Kelton

Most Requested

Avatar

Mean Gene Kelton's Most Requested (Avatar) offers fifteen scorching boogie and blues tracks, including the signature "My Baby Don't Wear No Panties" from the journeyman Houston bar warrior, with his two sons as his rhythm section.

Rob Roy Parnell

Jacksboro Highway

Blue Rocket

Rob Roy Parnell's Jacksboro Highway (Blue Rocket) manages to pay righteous homage to jump blues, T-Bone Walker, the Jacksboro Highway, and the Texas roadhouse experience on this eleven-song compilation produced by his brother, Lee Roy.