by Garrick Rawlings
James McMurtry returned to Saint Rocke last Thursday (July 20), continuing his COVID-interrupted tour in support of his latest, very positively reviewed album, The Horses and the Hounds (2021 on New West), his 10th studio release. During the lockdown, he continued to entertain with much-appreciated live streams from his Lockhart, Texas home.
Much like his writing, McMurtry’s performance style draws little attention to himself. He doesn’t project a performance, he executes with no show-biz enhancements. Early in the show, he humorously and politely requested the Saint Rocke lighting engineer to refrain from the rapid stagelight-flashing, surely done in earnest, but it wasn’t that kind of show.
His crack veteran band, The Heartless Bastards (Daren Hess – drums, Tim Holt – guitar/accordion, Cornbread – bass) bring all the chops, dynamics and rocking power to showcase the songs. It was an intelligently well-paced show and McMurtry’s subtle, Texas drawl between song prattle has some Ramblin’ Jack Elliott charm in there.
His set leaned heavily on his latest release, opening with the upbeat “Fuller Brush Man,” leading into “Childish Things.” When he got to fan favorite “Choctaw Bingo,” McMurtry’s intro was “We’ll now do a medley of our hit…”
At close to the midway point, something seldom seen in an electric show took place. The band left the stage while McMurtry strapped on an acoustic 12-string. Leaving it unplugged, he walked away from the microphone and sang “Blackberry Winter” while roaming the stage, close to the audience. The band returned for more songs, closing the set with “Too Long in the Wasteland.”
Murtry ended the show with a plugged-in solo acoustic performance of “These Things I’ve Come to Know” off of his next to most recent album, 2015’s Complicated Game.
McMurtry has carved out an impressive career which began with 1989’s Too Long in the Wasteland, produced by John Cougar Mellencamp. “Painting by Numbers” became a modest radio and MTV hit. But his mainstream success cooled after that and the major label, Columbia dropped him after his three releases. His next three albums were released on the esteemed roots oriented/Americana label, Sugar Hill Records, followed by releases on several indie labels.
What’s impressive about McMurtry’s continuing catalog of releases is the quality of the songwriting and the consistency of the records. I love Neil Young, but I don’t find a satisfying collection of his songs since 2010’s Le Noise, and prior to that, the underrated Broken Arrow from 1996 with Crazy Horse. In-between Young has released 24 albums I’ve listened to once – not that Young owes us anything.
McMurtry doesn’t write about himself. He paints pictures and tells stories in verse, inhabiting characters who are often traveling and struggling, in a very clear and concise fashion similar in his father’s prose. McMurtry is the son of recently deceased novelist Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment),
He also invests in righteous social commentary. “We Can’t Make It Here” from 2005 puts life under the Bush II regime into perspective, while taking the regime to task. This past May, he encored his shows in Knoxville and Nashville, where dressing in drag is illegal, with anti-drag hang-ups, sporting a red dress, lipstick, heels and fishnets (while performing his 2002 song “Red Dress”). The point being, he should be arrested. He wasn’t.
Opening the Saint Rocke show, from Austin, was solo act Betty Soo, previously of Charlie Faye and the Fayettes, and Austin supergroup Nobody’s Girl. Soo is opening for McMurtry this whole tour, and did her cross-dressing gender role part back in the Tennessee performances. She joined McMurtry for the encores on accordion wearing a dark suit and tie, fedora and penciled-in mustache. Singer/songwriter vocalist extraordinaire Soo began the show solo on acoustic guitar, later to be joined by The Heartless Bastard drummer Daren Hess and bassist Cornbread, who moved over to electric guitar to flush out the set as a trio, yet another effective dynamic decision setting it up quite nicely for the headliner. ER
