One Endless Night

AMG Review of One Endless Night

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

After two critically acclaimed albums on Hightone Records in the 1980s, Jimmie Dale Gilmore moved up to major label Elektra in the '90s. But the kudos did not translate into sales -- only one of his three Elektra albums scraped into the bottom reaches of the country charts -- and by the turn of the century he was back on an independent: the folkie label Rounder (distributing his own Windcharger imprint). Three and a half years separated Braver New World, the last Elektra album, from One Endless Night, his Rounder debut, but Gilmore apparently hadn't spent much time writing in the interim. Of the 12 listed songs (there was also a bonus track, the ockabilly "DFW," referring to Fort Worth and Dallas), only two are co-written by the singer. One Endless Night is a compendium of Texas songwriting, including the work of Gilmore cronies and mentors Butch Hancock, Townes Van Zandt, Willis Alan Ramsey, and Walter Hyatt, as well as such familiar names as John Hiatt, Jesse Winchester, Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, and Steve Gillette. Though Gilmore had always mixed his own compositions with covers, this album presents him as an interpretive singer.