Gilmore Pulls Off Hybrid of East and West : Pop music: The Texas country singer has a critical, if not a popular hit on his hands.

East is East, and West is West, and the twain do meet--in the person of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, a mystically inclined Texas country singer who studied Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell on the radio and Hindu philosophy in an ashram.

On his current album, “After Awhile,” which turned up frequently on critics’ best-of-1991 lists, the Austin-based Gilmore is equally at home with the earthiness of honky-tonk, the sweetness of folk, and the bite of rock.

But if Gilmore’s musical feet are firmly on the barroom floorboards, his mind tends to reach beyond the material world in songs about questing after values and spiritual understanding. Gilmore’s rich, haunting voice, with its reedy echoes of Willie Nelson, has a timeless, almost disembodied cast that makes it a perfect instrument for addressing questions of eternity without sounding pompous.

“The subject of questing is a real good basis for a song,” Gilmore, 46, said by phone recently from Nashville, Tenn., where he was rehearsing for a joint tour with Marty Brown that brings them to the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Wednesday, the Belly Up in Solano Beach on Thursday and the Troubadour on Friday.

“I don’t like the idea of getting preachy, but I do like the idea of having all (my philosophy) in there,” he said. “That’s what the interest of life is--what you learn from it, what you get out of it. My whole deal, the goal of my art, is to blend that with a simplicity of expression.”

Gilmore grew up in Lubbock, Tex., the home of Buddy Holly. His first noteworthy musical venture was the Flatlanders, an acoustic string band that included Gilmore’s longtime friends Joe Ely and Butch Hancock. The group made one album, then broke up in 1973.

Gilmore put his musical career on hold for the next seven years to pursue an interest in Eastern philosophy, “something I was already into before the Flatlanders happened.” With several other Lubbock friends, he went to Denver to study under the Guru Maharaj Ji.

In 1980, Gilmore moved to Austin, ready to resume his musical career. However, he got sidetracked.

“After I had been immersed in the spiritual discipline and surroundings, I came back into the music business and went hog wild to the other end of the pendulum,” he said. “Over a period of years I just became completely crazed and drunk all the time.

“I backslid past the worst place I was before. Moderation in everything had to become a guiding principle. The coming out of a hard time and into a positive view, that was really the case. I reconnected with my spiritual discipline. I sort of was given a second chance.”

Gilmore sobered up in 1982, and in 1983 he began making progress on his musical career. He reemerged with two critically well-received late-’80s albums on the independent Hightone label, then was signed by Elektra to record “After Awhile.” It was supposed to be a one-shot deal, part of the roots-oriented “American Explorer” series, but Elektra has since signed Gilmore to continue recording for the label.

Gilmore thinks his tradition-steeped sound can appeal to mainstream country fans, although he’s not so sure country radio will go for lyrics that often substitute abstract concepts for the concrete scenarios of mainstream country music.

“Maybe it is too weird, so weird it’s disturbing (to radio programmers),” he said.

Even so, Gilmore said, “The old country music form is something I’ll never lose. It’s a matter of taking the form, which I love deeply, and putting a really different twist on it, because my life and experiences have brought me in contact with some really different ideas.”