James McMurtry
The Black Dog & the Wandering Boy

A Lone Star sheriff hunts quail on horseback and keeps a secret second family. A mechanic lies among the spare parts on the floor of his garage and wonders if he can afford to keep his girlfriend. A troubled man sees hallucinations of a black dog and a wandering boy and hums “Weird Al” songs in his head.

These are some of the strange and richly drawn characters who inhabit James McMurtry’s eleventh album, The Black Dog & the Wandering Boy. A supremely insightful and inventive storyteller, he teases vivid worlds out of small details, setting them to arrangements that have the elements of Americana, rolling guitars, barroom harmonies, traces of banjo and harmonica but sound too sly and smart for such a general category.

Funny and sad often in the same breath, the album adds a new chapter to a long career that has enjoyed a resurgence as young songwriters like Sarah Jarosz and Jason Isbell cite him as a formative influence.

As varied as they are, these new story-songs find inspiration in scraps from his family’s past: a stray sketch, an old poem by a family friend, the hallucinations experienced by his father, the writer Larry McMurtry. “It’s something I do all the time,” he says, “but usually I draw from my own scraps.”

As any good writer will do, McMurtry collects little ideas and hangs on to them for years, sometimes even decades. “South Texas Lawman” grew out of a line from a poem by a friend of the McMurtry clan, T.D. Hobart.

Driven by gravelly guitars and a loose rhythm section, it’s a careful study of a man whose feelings of  our house way back in the ‘70s, when we lived in Virginia. During one visit he wrote this poem about his father’s attitude toward South Texas. He wrote it down on cardboard, and I came across it recently. There was a line about hunting quail on horseback, and that was the seed of the song. I’ve lost the poem since then.”

“James writes like he’s lived a lifetime.” —John Mellencamp

“One of America’s greatest living songwriters” – Rolling Stone

“The most vital lyricist in America today.” —Bob Harris, BBC 2 RADIO

“James McMurtry is a true Americana poet – actually he is a poet regardless of genre” —Michael Nesmith

“McMurtry might be the best topical writer performing right now and (Just Us Kids) finds him at his finest.” —Patterson Hood, Drive-By Truckers

“America’s fiercest songwriter” – CNN

“James McMurtry writes songs filled with characters so real that you’re sure they’re going to climb out of the speakers and look you in the eyes.” —VOICE OF AMERICA

“The songwriting conscience of America,” —FOLK WAX

“As the years pile on, James McMurtry sings with ever more authority and deserved cynical grace…With each album, (he) finds more to say and a stubborn, uncompromising way to say it.” —iTUNES

“Music that’s haunting but familiar, much like the struggles he depicts.” —WASHINGTON POST

“brave, smart, and pithy music that captures James McMurtry at the top of his game.” —ALL MUSIC

“more energized than ever.” —TEXAS MONTHLY

“His songwriting is clear and precise, and he proves once again that he is not afraid to take on the powers that be.” —VINTAGE GUITAR

“McMurtry’s songwriting is in a class by itself.” —METROMIX

“Texastentialist panorama of gray-sky lucidity and neon highway jungles…” —VILLAGE VOICE

“The veteran Texas songwriter’s new album, Just Us Kids, features the slow burner ‘Cheney’s Toy,’ one of the sharpest musical indictments yet of George Bush.” —ROLLING STONE

“emboldened by the reception to 2004’s acerbic (and increasingly relevant) ‘We Can’t Make it Here,’ McMurtry ramps up the polemics on Just Us Kids.” —USA TODAY

“One of the best protest singers working today.” —TIME OUT CHICAGO