James McMurtry: The Black Canine And The Wandering Boy
LP | CD | obtain
Launched twentieth June 2025
Famend and venerable Texas folks/roots artist James McMurtry returns with a brand new album The Black Canine And The Wandering Boy – his fourteenth album and the primary since his final launch, 2021’s The Horse And The Hounds. Martin Grey takes a pay attention and offers a powerful thumbs up.
The archaic time period ‘troubadour‘ doesn’t actually get used / deployed that always each time writing about music as of late. Etymologically talking, it’s a phrase derived from the French language, particularly from the Occitanian (Provence) area of southern France. In the course of the center ages, male performers who composed lyrical poetry that was set to music have been considered ‘troubadours‘ – the brand new time period arising from the native Occitanian phrase ‘trobar‘ – that means ‘to seek out or invent’ . A phrase synonymous with it and utilized in an identical time context could be the extra acquainted ‘minstrel‘.
These days, the phrase ‘troubadour’ is normally adopted – or appropriated – to explain storytelling songwriters usually working within the older, conventional musical genres equivalent to roots, nation, blues and folks (or folks rock) . The identical may very well be stated of the venerable and famend Fort Price, Texas-born singer songwriter James McMurtry – whose distinguished profession has been one in all regular consistency stretching throughout greater than 35 years and now 14 albums.
His is a type of that has deftly sidestepped all the standard hyperbole that has been lavished upon a few of his erstwhile contemporaries over the many years. As an alternative, the important thing to his admirable longevity is his no-nonsense method to his narrative-like songwriting, proffering gritty, rivetting and interesting lyrical tales that contact upon all elements of life’s trials and tribulations: be they hope, loss, redemption, love, betrayal, revenge, hardship, political themes or generally even surreal and satirical dry humour (a trait which frequently will get missed when the listener immerses themselves into the trivialities of his earnestly delivered songs).
Underrated (in lots of circles nonetheless) McMurtry could also be, however his songwriting pedigree is nearly as good a sign of his deserving place among the many vanguard of different folks roots notables loosely grouped below the ‘Americana’ style equivalent to Steve Earle and the late John Prine, to quote two extra widely-revered examples.
James is in fact the son of equally celebrated novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry, and thus the inherited mastery for storytelling runs naturally in some ways. His father Larry handed away aged 84 in March 2021 – precisely every week after James’s 59th birthday. He had been affected by dementia throughout his ultimate years and because of the medicine he was prescribed would usually have vivid hallucinations, which impressed the title of James’ newest album and certainly kind the idea of the lyrical content material of the title track.
The revelation of the ‘black canine and the wandering boy’ got here from James’ stepmother Norma – who was the widow of Ken Kesey and whom his father married in 2011 and remained with for the final decade of his life. James was fully unaware of his father’s hallucinations as he by no means revealed them to his son, however later discovered about his most frequent delusion by means of Norma recounting them to him.
Appropriately sufficient, the duvet artwork picture for the brand new album options an unfinished Ken Kesey pencil sketch of James as a younger boy – juxtaposed towards one other, unrelated, picture of a small black terrier. This drawing James later found amongst his father’s private results after his demise, and didn’t initially realise that it was the work of his stepmother’s former accomplice Kesey, who as a pal would usually drop by.
This all makes for a deeply private pay attention on a file that pulls no punches by means of its lyrics: songs which can be variously thought-provoking, evocative, heartbreaking, valedictory, even light-hearted; all impressed by completely different settings from completely different eras, lots of them extraordinarily efficient in conveying that sense of how life comes at you from so many sudden angles that generally you’re left considering the inevitability of what the ravages of time wreak upon you bodily and psychologically.
Critical topic issues lots of them could be, however then you definately do have the beautiful melodies and preparations that are the crowning glory that makes The Black Canine And The Wandering Boy such a persistently robust and spectacular pay attention from begin to end. After a couple of spins, the songs – and phrases – creep into your unconscious, after which keep lodged there.
Every one of many ten tracks here’s a completely distilled vignette set towards impeccable and sympathetic enjoying from his common backing band – musicians Cornbread (actual title Mike Traylor) on bass, Tim Holt on guitar and Daren Hess on drums, along with common collaborator Betty Soo on backing vocals and accordion, which do every thing to enhance and improve the deep baritone of McMurtry’s drawl, in addition to lend gravitas and emotional weight to the themes tackled inside the songs themselves. There are visitor musicians too – specifically Charlie Sexton, Sarah Jarosz, Bukka Allen and Bonnie Whitmore who assist increase the palette of instrumentation and supply welcome parts of texture and finesse.
Curiously sufficient, the album opens and closes with two cowl variations written by fellow Texans Jon Dee Graham (Laredo [Small Dark Something]) and Kris Kristofferson (Damaged Freedom Music).
The previous is an uptempo and strident rocker that kicks off the album in type – nearly flying out of the traps – with its bluesy harmonica intro that for one tiny second remembers Canned Warmth, and is the form of monitor that nearly evokes a type of dusty Arizona freeway driving scenes you usually get on the beginning credit of a highway film. Solely the subject material as posited by the unique creator offers with a dope-smoking junkie’s story and the emotional baggage that comes with it (‘I drove dwelling from Laredo / I had the fireflies round my head…’ / ‘We shot dope till the cash ran out…. [pause]….cash ran out!’) – an excellent narrative for somebody as deeply rooted in the same artwork as McMurtry.
The album nearer by Kristofferson (solely just lately departed) is one thing else altogether. A very stirring homecoming track narrating the story of a wounded soldier coming back from battle – it’s as efficient and heart-rending a treatise on the ever-unchanging futility of struggle because it’s potential to get. Deliberately achieved as a devoted tribute to Kris of types, on condition that he was one in all McMurtry’s heroes who so impressed him throughout his personal youth, it appeared virtually logical for him to repay his debt in form. It’s additionally extraordinarily transferring to grasp that the long-lasting songwriter had handed away shortly earlier than McMurtry entered the studio to file this quantity.
On the title track, the tempo slows as McMurtry expresses all of the palpable fears and conflicting ideas that include ageing and deterioration. The monitor will get extra fraught and agitated through the mid-point – as if it’s making an attempt to articulate the frustration felt by the narrator, whose character continues to concern for, and query, their sanity and really feel rising isolation from their predicament, trapped of their incapacity and left to fend for themselves, doubtlessly unloved and undesirable. The inspiration for this lyric – McMurtry’s father’s hallucinations while he was beset with dementia – makes this quantity emotionally harrowing.
The Shade Of Evening options backing vocals by Betty Soo and has a nice sufficient sheen to the instrumentation with some high quality fretwork by Holt however betrays one more downbeat story of a reprobate who has someway discovered himself in a cell after one battle too many.
Elsewhere the tempo shifts subtly in the direction of extra slower-paced laments. South Texas Lawman is an evocative story of an previous sheriff reluctantly dealing with his oncoming obsolescence by means of advancing age and inevitable decrepitude : ‘I was robust as any man / I was powerful / No person bothered me / Now I’ve had about sufficient / This don’t go well with me…..Now I can’t stand getting previous / It don’t match me’. Phrases, which I’m positive we are able to all now absolutely relate to because the ravages of time fly by at ever prodigious speeds and all of us need nothing greater than to cling on dearly to the notion of everlasting youth. McMurtry’s world-weary supply right here definitely introduced a lump to my throat that’s for positive.
There may be sly humour right here too, in case listeners have been of the impression that each one is black and white and devoid of color: Pinocchio in Vegas subverts the fabled story and as an alternative substitutes the picket boy with an ageing opportunist who seems to be a little bit of a chancer who tries to get the higher of others by means of his conniving methods. It contains a mirth-inducing opening couplet: ‘Pinocchio in Vegas together with his eye on the prize / He’s an actual boy now, his dick grows when he lies….’ and in the direction of the tip provides a neat abstract that encapsulates the trendy narcissist in each wannabe Mr. Massive: ‘Pinocchio’s over it / He don’t beat up on himself / He’s needed to study to be an asshole similar to everyone else..’
Sarah Jarosz’s banjo offers understated however stunning accompaniment to McMurtry’s sardonic supply as this story unravels.
McMurtry’s most specific and political track on right here arrives through the significantly chilling Annie – which welds a deceptively easy and downtempo banjo-and-violin melody with a lyrical rumination on 9/11 and the destruction of the WTC’s twin towers. Right here, the author rues the truth that there was ‘nothing on the TV’ solely to modify off and discover the next morning his colleagues asking him the place he’d disappeared to as ‘the World Commerce Centre’s gone’. McMurtry then provides up, in his resigned drawl, a withering tirade towards the then president, the ‘youthful Bush’, hanging between the eyes on his ineptitude, inexperience, and lack of dignity and hubris within the face of such a modern-day calamity, successfully admonishing his very existence. The truth that this lyrical cosh is delivered in the identical world weary method as a couple of of the opposite tracks on this album speaks volumes about how one doesn’t must shout or scream to ram the stark message dwelling.
He additional wields the baton of injustice and repeats the trick to much more barbed and scabrous impact on Sons Of The Second Sons. It begins as a track which examines the assorted ramifications of American ancestry, colonisation and patriotism, however then concludes with a sideswipe on the present president (no need to call him right here) and his egregious failings and weaknesses, and targets his scorn at his blind legion of followers (‘All camoed up and standing tall / Constructing bombs and border partitions / As all collective conscience falls away’) and questions if that is what being patriotic is all about. In the direction of the conclusion, restraint turns into an excessive amount of for him and he’s extra righteously offended, snarling the final strains: ‘Sons of the Second sons / Merchandise of genocide / Sprucing up their weapons……Sons of the pagan serfs / Salt of the fucking earth…..In quest of Caesar’. Highly effective stuff.
Maybe the closest to radio-friendly pop songs on right here (if that time period doesn’t do the general power of the album any injustice) are Again To Coeur d’Alene and Crusing Away with their extra rapid verse/refrain preparations. Each possess very addictive refrains and showcase McMurtry and his band sounding appreciably lighter in tone compared to the weightier really feel of some of the opposite tracks.
The previous – noticeably essentially the most uptempo quantity right here – mockingly paperwork the lot of a tough grafting musician and their hopes of making an attempt to gatecrash the elite, and is punctuated by an earworm chorus: ‘Gotta get identified / Gotta get identified / Why do I really feel like a felony / For taking a superb lengthy shot? / My chances are high minimal / I’m nonetheless giving all of it I’ve acquired’. The latter equally particulars some type of life stranded on the highway – indifferent from a a lot longed-for home actuality – however performs out at a extra relaxed tempo and has a genuinely catchy chorus: ‘Crusing away / Feeling fated and I’m not okay / Crusing alone / Staring by the celebs and I can’t get dwelling now’.
This can be a well-sequenced and exquisitely produced file, and on condition that James McMurtry’s been delivering this calibre of songwriting – stuffed with tales of emotional gravitas and musical virtuosity – for greater than three many years, it takes a really churlish heathen to dismiss him as simply one other nameless American roots/folks artist. He has a knack for phrases which at all times strike near the guts – reflections and ruminations on existence in all its inherent grittiness and heartbreaking inevitability. A musical chronicle of lives (each actual and fictional) lived, liked and misplaced that however present a welcome antidotal soundtrack to the shallow, hedonistic and vacuous processed rubbish that trendy life all too usually hurls at us.
Music from James McMurtry might be bought
on Bandcamp or the official artist internet web page
Comply with James McMurtry on Fb and Instagram
All phrases by Martin Grey
Additional articles and opinions by Martin might be discovered right here
A Plea From Louder Than Battle
Louder Than Battle is run by a small however devoted impartial staff, and we depend on the small sum of money we generate to maintain the positioning working easily. Any cash we do get will not be lining the pockets of oligarchs or mad-cap billionaires dictating what our journalists are allowed to suppose and write, or hungry shareholders. We all know occasions are powerful, and we wish to proceed bringing you information on essentially the most attention-grabbing releases, the most recent gigs and anything that tickles our fancy. We’re not pushed by revenue, simply pure enthusiasm for a scene that each one in all us is obsessed with.
To us, music and tradition are eveything, with out them, our very souls shrivel and die. We don’t cost artists for the publicity we give them and to many, what we do is completely important. Subscribing to one in all our paid tiers takes only a minute, and every sign-up makes a huge effect, serving to to maintain the flame of impartial music burning! Please click on the button beneath to assist.
John Robb – Editor in Chief
