Dream of Guiding Friend’s Course

One thing Jimmie Dale Gilmore would like to do if he ever makes a real bundle from his music is to finance a recording by Al Strehli Jr., a Lubbock songwriter hardly known outside the credit lines on Gilmore’s past two albums.

Gilmore, who included two Strehli songs on each release, said he has known him since 1966 or so.

“He’s real reclusive; he’s never even played in a band,” Gilmore said. “It’s a paradoxical situation, because he doesn’t like publicity, and I’m always raving about him. He only performs for friends, and he doesn’t do any recordings.

Strehli’s method of gazing toward eternity while using symbols and musical styles that spring from the Texas flatlands is right in tune with Gilmore’s own style.

“He might entertain some ideas of doing a record if he could have a symphony orchestra and a vast amount of control,” he said. “It would be very difficult, but it’s one of my pipe dreams that someday, if I got really wealthy, I could go in and do it.”