Jimmie Dale Gilmore Returns With "One Endless Night"

When Texas country singer/songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore releases his excellent "One Endless Night" at the end of Feb., it's not the down-home tokers of Americana who will need to be converted. It's the Nashville world of big-label, formulaic country and its legions of ratings-fed radio stations who will have to be gently led--if they will listen.

Commercial country favors sentiment over complex meaning, in contrast to Gilmore's repertoire of songs. It's unusual to find a singer who will tackle a philosophical tune like Jesse Winchester's ''Defying Gravity'' (beautifully recorded in '70s by Emmylou Harris, who appears on this album), express the remorse of Willis Allan Ramsey's ''Goodbye Old Missoula,'' or take a Deadhead classic like ''Ripple'' and spin it with a whole different feeling than Uncle Jerry did.

''On this album, I totally feel a blending of my traditional underpinnings and the more experimentalist attitude of 'Braver Newer World,''' said Gilmore, who absorbed honky-tonk from his bar-band guitarist father and came up playing with Lubbock songwriters Joe Ely and Butch Hancock in the loose association known as the Flatlanders. The Grammy-winning ''Braver New World'' was the singer's third and last album for Nonesuch's American Explorer series.

Though Gilmore's warmly nasal voice, similar to Willie Nelson's, doesn't sound like the ''Nashville'' of today, the disc was recorded there with producer Buddy Miller and a cast of electric guitar, lap steel and organ players who court the music well.

''I've always felt very comfortable there,'' Gilmore said of Nashville. ''It's not the geographical location; it's the people you're working with. And Nashville has a glut of talented musicians, just as Austin does. We recorded this album in Buddy's living room, and it reminded me so much of when Joe and Butch and I were sitting around our house in Lubbock.''

Now that the music is done and has been sent to public radio earlier than usual to generate interest, Gilmore and his own label Windcharger Music face the formidable task of winning over new fans and convincing commercial radio that this is music that their listeners will want.

With help from Rounder, which is distributing the record through its agreement with Universal Music, the plan is first to get the retailers interested. ''The industry response has been overwhelming,'' said Rounder's director of marketing Paul Foley.

Gilmore is on the road in Feb. playing for Universal's retail buyers across the U.S., and he'll be in the center of the retail corral when he plays a major industry scholarship dinner the day before the album goes on sale.

To generate public interest, two free Liquid Audio tracks from the album are available now in the downloads section of Amazon.com and will soon be on other retailers' sites. Gilmore will play in-stores in Austin and New York when the record hits the street, and he'll tour heavily in the spring.

If retail sales are strong, Foley hopes that mainstream country radio won't be able to ignore the record. ''We really look at Lucinda Williams' story from a couple years ago,'' he said. ''She had never been played on radio much in the past. But the sales and the reaction of consumers forced radio to start playing her record.''

Leslie Rouffe, who is handling radio promotions, said that triple-A stations with roots shows might pick up the album, but there is a much better shot with the 70 stations in the Americana format, a Gavin radio category that started five years ago. The format encompasses artists such as Joe Ely, Alison Krauss and Steve Earle.

''Americana is too twangy for the triple A side,'' said Rouffe, ''and too traditional for the country side. Country's so tight with the all the [promotional] consultants, they really don't like anyone to play in their 'reindeer game,' so it's hard to break into that format. That's why the Americana format was developed.''

''I think my role from the beginning is that I never fell into any of the categories,'' Gilmore said. ''And I think this record demonstrates that. I just love what I love, and I've never discarded anything I loved in favor of something new. I didn't toss out my Lefty Frizzell records when I discovered the Beatles.''

Once the record is out, Gilmore won't embark on a full-scale solo tour until May 6, starting in Seattle. But before then, Ely, Hancock and he will play a string of theater dates as the Flatlanders, backed by a still-to-be-determined rhythm section. A Flatlanders album is a possibility too, sure to be welcomed by fans who wanted more after Rounder reissued ''More a Legend Than a Band,'' a '70s album that was the group's only public document.

''We've been working a whole bunch together lately, and it's been the best ever,'' Gilmore said. ''We don't have a specific album deal, and we don't want this to interfere with our solo careers, but when we have enough songs for an album and the time to do it, we're going to make one.''