While Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s first two solo albums presented him as an enlightened honky tonk cowboy, 1991′s After Awhile, his first set for Elektra, was less stylistically bound to country music, and approached Gilmore as a singer/songwriter, albeit one with a decided West Texas sensibility. The result was a considerably more subdued and personal set than Gilmore had offered in the past; Gilmore wrote all of the album’s 12 songs (except for Butch Hancock’s “My Mind’s Got a Mind of Its Own,” which fits Gilmore like a glove), and the quieter, often acoustic-based arrangements provide a more sympathetic backdrop for the more cerebral corners of his songs than the spunky old-school country frameworks of his work for Hightone (Gilmore discusses his interest in Buddhist and Hindu teachings in the liner notes, which would have seemed a bit odd on Fair and Square or Jimmie Dale Gilmore). While the bluesy wail of “Midnight Train” and the uptempo shuffle of “My Mind’s Got a Mind of Its Own” proved Gilmore hadn’t turned his back on the rootsier side of his musical vocabulary, the more languid tracks reflect a high and lonesome mood that’s solely Gilmore’s province, and “Tonight I Think I’m Gonna Go Downtown,” “Treat Me Like a Saturday Night,” and “Blue Moon Waltz” are simply beautiful performances of remarkable songs that could have come from no one else. After Awhile is a subtle, unforced masterpiece that captures Gilmore at the subtle peak of his abilities. – Mark Deming
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