By Paul T. Mueller

Show recap – Jimmie Dale Gilmore and the West Texas Exiles, McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, Houston, 2.7.26

It’s surely a measure of Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s stature in the roots-music community that when his musical partner Dave Alvin is unable to accompany him as scheduled, few ticketholders seem to take the venue up on its offer of a refund.

Alvin, reportedly dealing with back issues, couldn’t make their Feb. 7 show at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck in Houston, but what appeared to be a capacity crowd turned out anyway.

Attendees were rewarded with an excellent performance that found Gilmore in fine voice, especially considering that he’s closing in on 81. The show featured many of his best-known songs, interspersed with emotional recollections of his longtime friend (and bandmate in The Flatlanders) Joe Ely.

After starting out solo with “Tonight I Think I’m Gonna Go Downtown” and “Down In My Hometown,” Gilmore called on his son, Colin Gilmore, to join him for several songs, including “Just a Wave, Not the Water” (for which he credited its author, Butch Hancock) and a quiet but intense rendition of Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos).”

For the rest of the show, Gilmore was backed by the West Texas Exiles, which counts Colin Gilmore as one of its members (the band later played the evening’s second show at the Duck). Jimmie Dale noted that he enjoyed playing familiar songs in a new context, and the hits continued: “Another Colorado,” written for his wife, Janet, who was in attendance; the lively “She Still Likes to Rock and Roll”; Ely’s “Because of the Wind”; and Dave Alvin’s “Marie, Marie,” featuring the Exiles’ Marco Gutierrez on vocals and Jimmie Dale on harmonica.

The show closed with “Dallas,” the first song on The Flatlander’s 1972 debut, followed by what Jimmie Dale called a “perfunctory encore,” a rousing rendition of “Oh Boy,” made famous by Buddy Holly.