Old-Timey, Heirloom, Bluegrass? Whatever You Call It, Call It Good Music!

The Wronglers w/ Jimmie Dale
Gilmore and their CD "Heirloom Music" 

WRONGLER'S HEIRLOOM MUSIC DUE NEXT MONTH

San Francisco billionaire Warren Hellman knows the ins and outs about putting on a music festival. For the last 10 years he’s been the driving force and sole financial backer for San Francisco’s free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival - a gift from Hellman to the city of San Francisco.

Hellman sometimes steps out from behind the scenes into a different role, playing banjo as a featured performer with his band The Wronglers a play on Wrangler jeans, since Levi Strauss is San Francisco-based.

The Wronglers
(Warren Hellman, Nate Levine, B Martin,
K Martin, Colleen Browne and Chris Hellman) 

This year, the Wronglers have teamed up with folk/country Texas singer-songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore to release the aptly named album Heirloom Music, a beautiful collection of classic songs from the '30s and '40s in a genre they call "oldtime".  The CD is due out next month or early May.

Gilmore writes songs that would be described as alternative country. But for his forthcoming album, Heirloom Music with The Wronglers — he says he was thinking more in terms of bluegrass music — although that's not an exact description.

"We were calling it old-timey music, but that still wasn't quite accurate," he says. "But [bluegrass musician and investor] Warren Hellman had said that someone had referred to this sort of music as 'heirloom music,' and I loved that phrase. There's something dismissive about [the term 'old-timey'] and our point is that this music is old, but it's really good and really still pertinent."

Jimmy Dale Gilmore on NPR's "Fresh Air"

Listen here or download

The high-lonesome, warbling tenor sound of Gilmore’s expressive voice is a perfect fit for the “old time” music of the Wronglers. Sailing through harmonious renditions of songs like “Time Changes Everything,” “In the Pines” and “Deep Ellum Blues,” the band delighted an overflow crowd yesterday at the SXSW music and film conference in Austin, TX. 

Hellman, on banjo, was dapper in a sequin-spangled jacket and a tie once owned by banjo virtuoso Earl Scruggs (a gift from Scruggs’ son).

At the end of their SXSW set, Hellman and Gilmore traded lead vocals on a cheerful “Big Rock Candy Mountain," in which Hellman’s voice was oddly reminiscent of the original version performed by the song’s composer, Harry McClintock.