With his otherworldly warble, spiritual sensibilities and deep Texas twang, Jimmie Dale Gilmore has been the Zen cowboy of alt-country ever since helping to lay the groundwork for the genre in the '70s with The Flatlanders. He became a progressive-country icon in the ‘80s when he started his solo career, sounding both down-home and metaphysical at the same time on "Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown", and tearing into hard-country stompers like the Townes Van Zandt-penned "White Freightliner Blues", lending a little magic to everything he's touched with that sterling set of pipes.