After Awhile

1	Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown 2:51
2	My Mind's Got a Mind of It's Own 2:30
3	Treat Me Like a Saturday Night 3:36
4	Chase the Wind 3:07
5	Go to Sleep Alone 3:06
6	After Awhile 3:33
7	Number Sixteen 2:46
8	Don't Be a Stranger to Your Heart 3:47
9	Blue Moon Waltz 2:52
10	These Blues 2:19
11	Midnight Train 4:46
12	Story of You 3:02

Barnes & Noble

Delivered in a quavering, haunting tenor that is pure West Texas lonesome, Jimmie Dale Gilmore's songs are ethereal and Zen-like, reflecting 20 years of Eastern religious studies that kept him out of the music business for the greater part of the '70s and '80s. Gilmore has recorded several top-notch albums, but After Awhile is the one that showcases his own material, from the elegant, elliptical "Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown" (legendary from its inclusion on the Flatlanders' essential More a Legend Than a Band album) and "Treat Me Like a Saturday Night" to the wistful "Don't Be a Stranger to Your Heart" to the blazing blues of "Midnight Train." The album's one cover is a lickety-split take on Butch Hancock's "My Mind's Got a Mind of Its Own," a portrait of a man at cross-purposes with his own gray matter: "I can't count to one without thinkin' twice," Gilmore jokes. Full of gentle humor, serene wisdom, and staggering artistry, After Awhile is a superior, multileveled work. Daniel Durchholz

All Music Guide

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