From the first note and phrase, Texas-based, Americana singer-songwriter James McMurtry captivates ears with his gravelly, baritone voice, soulfully rendered to deliver his precisely crafted lyrics in a semi-conversational, narrative way. McMurtry, who plays Variety Playhouse on Wednesday, is a singing storyteller. His words are writerly.
In the same way a good novel triggers the imagination to manifest worlds and characters in the mind’s eye, McMurtry’s songs are evocative, bringing to life people (with their idiosyncrasies and personalities), places (with observed specificity) and scenery (often snapshots taken from the great open road where the musician feels most at home and spends much of his time on tour).
“A lot of the songs started with stuff I saw through the windshield,” he said.
Credit: Mary Keating Bruton
Credit: Mary Keating Bruton
McMurtry’s song “Canola Fields” is just one example: He describes the chartreuse color of the Canadian canola fields as reminiscent of the hue of an old crush’s 1969 VW Bug. He goes on to paint vividly the scenery “like tumbleweeds raked up into rows” and the crushing older couple (“In a way back corner of a crosstown bus/We were hiding out under my hat/Cashing in on a thirty-year crush/You can’t be young and do that”). In another song, “Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call,” imagery and details — like a pork chop at a classic diner, the temperature on the Emerald Coast and a roadside stand selling Tupelo honey — place listeners firmly in scene with a strained couple on a road trip.
McMurtry’s cinematic mind may be genetic. His father was the great novelist Larry McMurtry, who wrote “Terms of Endearment,” “The Last Picture Show” and “Lonesome Dove,” all of which were adapted for film or television.
His process as a musician, of course, is different than his novelist father’s. His dad, who died in 2021, struggled with short stories, saying they were “the toughest form of prose.”
“I’m the other way,” McMurtry said. “I don’t have the attention span to write a novel, so I got to get on it quick ... Usually, I have to get words and melody at the same time ... I start with a couple of lines and a melody in my head, and if I keep turning ‘em over, and if they keep me up at night, then I’ll finish the song.”
From the melody and phrase unravels the story and characters.
“I wind up with a character because I can tell a story better through a fictional character,” McMurtry said. “The trick is to stay in character because if I start trying to make my own point or inject my own opinion, it might kill the song.”
Lyrics birthed from the point of view of a character can sometimes confuse listeners who resonate with the emotional authenticity of McMurtry’s songs so much, they assume the stories are from his own life. McMurtry asserts they are not; at least not entirely.
“Your life will bleed into your fiction ... But I can’t write straight autobiography ... It gets tricky because you get backlash that way. (Since) the song is sung in my voice, so people think it must be my opinion, which is not always the case. Occasionally I get female point of view and people don’t get that either because I’m singing scratchy baritone. That’s one of the occupational hazards I guess,” he said wryly.
McMurtry’s songs, like the man himself, can have a wry sense of humor, albeit delivered in a sardonic tone from his lock-jawed, flat lips. Other songs or performances have been politically edgy. His song “Operation Nevermind” comments on society’s propensity to look away from war. And in 2023, Rolling Stone covered how he performed his encore song “Red Dress” while wearing lipstick, fish nets, pearls and, fittingly, a red dress, in order to protest Tennessee’s anti-drag legislation. Anyone familiar with McMurtry’s raw Texas grit and countryman masculinity knows how out-of-character the outfit was.
Some fans have mistakenly assumed McMurtry’s politics and then are surprised, criticizing him as “woke.” While his lyrics often pull scenes from rural, red, America, McMurtry is blue.
After 35 years of making music, does he feel more courageous?
Firmly, no. “I don’t feel more bold,” he said. “I feel vulnerable. The militias are emboldened now, and I’ve seen those guys at my shows. When you get an authoritarian regime, man, the first thing they go after is the press and the arts.”
Mostly McMurtry sticks to his bread-and-butter, guitar-centric, folk, rock and country music centered on interesting characters and stories in verse. He steers wide of anything that feels like a sermon.
It’s been four years since McMurtry released his last studio album, “The Horses and the Hounds,” which makes up much of his tour set list. This April, if all goes according to plan, he will release his new album “The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy.” He coproduced it with Don Dixon, who, in full-circle fashion, was also the producer on McMurtry’s acclaimed 1989 album “Too Long in the Wasteland” released by Columbia Records.
McMurtry said he chose Dixon because of his known digital editing prowess. “He’s a good bit older than me, but a lot more up on current technology,” he said.
On a national tour now, McMurtry has begun adding a few songs from the new album into his shows. One, the title track, contains an echo of McMurtry’s father.
“After my dad passed, my stepmom asked if he’d ever talked to me about his hallucinations, about the black dog and the wandering boy. He hadn’t,” McMurtry said. “So I took those images and I applied them to a fictional character, a much younger person.”
On “The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy,” the singer also includes a cover of “Broken Freedom Song” — with lyrics about a solider that explores themes of loss, regret and the elusive nature of true freedom — by one of his earliest influences, Kris Kristofferson.
“It’s probably 50 years old now,” McMurtry said, “but it still applies.”
CONCERT PREVIEW
James McMurtry
8 p.m. Wednesday at Variety Playhouse. Betty Soo opens. $25. 1099 Euclid Ave. NE, Atlanta. variety-playhouse.com
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