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Country-folk singer/songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore is best known for his unusual fusion of traditional honky-tonk, Hank Williams-ish country stylings with lyrics influenced by Eastern mysticism and philosophy. Born and raised among country musicians in the Texas panhandle, Gilmore grew up in Lubbock, a city known for its university and surrounded by 100 miles of dusty cotton fields; a place that has produced some of Texas' most critically acclaimed musicians, including the great Buddy Holly, the singer Mac Davis, folk songstress Nanci Griffith, Dixie Chick Natalie Maines, country superstar Waylon Jennings, Jesse "Guitar" Taylor, and Gilmore's friends and collaborators, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock. Part Cherokee, Gilmore's look and style have always been somewhat unusual for the honky-tonk milieu. Gilmore briefly attempted a music career after high school, forming the now-legendary Flatlanders with Hancock and Ely, but by 1974 his growing interest in spirituality led him to leave Texas behind - and music along with it - to join a Taoist community in Denver, Colorado. In the '80s, having developed an aesthetic that merged his love of country with his spiritual interests, Gilmore moved to Austin, Texas to re-initiate his music career, and within a few months was playing regularly around town. He released two independent label records in the late '80s before Elektra released his breakthrough album "Spinning Around the Sun" in 1993. The album made numerous end-of-the-year 'best of' lists in the media, and Gilmore's career was given an extra boost by high profile fans such as David Letterman and Natalie Merchant. Gilmore's reputation was further enhanced by the reissue of an out-of-print Flatlanders record made in Nashville in 1972, released by Rounder records in 1991 under the title 'More a Legend Than a Band.' He has continued to release solo records, and in 2002, reunited with high school buddies Butch Hancock and Joe Ely (the Bruce Springsteen of Texas), to reform the Flatlanders.
Gilmore's first film appearance was a brief cameo in 1993's 'The Thing Called Love,' an account of young singer/songwriters trying to break into the Nashville music scene, directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring then-unknown Sandra Bullock and River Phoenix in one of his final roles. In 1996, Gilmore was recruited by his producer, T-Bone Burnett, to appear in the new Coen Brothers film, 'The Big Lebowski,' on which Burnett was also working as musical director (One of the world's foremost authorities on traditional American music, Burnett has collaborated on several Coen films, and was largely responsible for the massively successful 'O Brother, Where Art Thou' soundtrack). Gilmore appears as Smokey, the 'pacifist' bowler whom John Goodman's Walter threatens to shoot for allegedly stepping 'over the line' when throwing a strike. The inside joke, of course, is that, as a practicing Taoist, Gilmore is himself a pacifist. Gilmore was also recruited by fan and friend Billy Bob Thornton to contribute to the soundtrack and appear briefly in "Monster's Ball" singing in a honky-tonk; he has also contributed original music for the soundtrack of Robert Redford's "The Horse Whisperer."
