"Ruby and Carlos"...live on his sweet 12-string
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXVgl2Y4 ... re=related
"Ruby says you're getting us in a world of hurt, Down below the Mason Dumb Ass Line the food gets worse...."
James McMurtry (born March 18, 1962, Fort Worth, Texas) is an American rock and folk-rock/americana singer, songwriter, guitarist, bandleader and occasional actor (Daisy Miller, Lonesome Dove). He performs with veteran bandmates and rhythm section The Heartless Bastards (Darren Hess and Ronnie Johnson - not to be confused with the Cincinnati, OH, band of nearly the same name, Heartless Bastards).
His father, novelist Larry McMurtry, gave him his first guitar at age seven. His mother, an English professor, taught him how to play it: "My mother taught me three chords and the rest I just stole as I went along. I learned everything by ear or by watching people."
McMurtry spent the first seven years of his boyhood in Ft. Worth but was raised mostly in Leesburg, Virginia. He attended the Woodberry Forest School, Orange, Virginia. He began performing in his teens, writing bits and pieces. He started performing his own songs at a downtown beer garden while studying English and Spanish at the University of Arizona in Tucson. After traveling to Alaska and playing a few gigs, he returned to Texas and his father's "little bitty ranch house crammed with 10,000 books". After a time, he left for San Antonio, where he worked as a house painter, actor, bartender, and sometimes singer, performing at writer's nights and open mics.
In 1987 McMurtry's career entered an upswing. A friend in San Antonio suggested McMurtry enter the New Folk songwriter contest; he became one of six winners that year. Also around this time John Mellencamp was starring in a film based on a script by McMurtry's father, which gave McMurtry the opportunity to get a demo tape to Mellencamp. Mellencamp subsequently served as co-producer on McMurtry's 1989 debut album, Too Long in the Wasteland. McMurtry also appeared on the soundtrack of the film Falling from Grace, working with Mellencamp, John Prine, Joe Ely, and Dwight Yoakam in a "supergroup" called Buzzin' Cousins.
McMurtry released follow-up albums in Candyland (1992) and Where'd You Hide the Body (1995). Walk Between the Raindrops followed in 1998 and 2002 brought St. Mary of the Woods. In April 2004, McMurtry released a tour album called Live In Aught-Three. Choctaw Bingo, one of McMurtry's most popular songs, is featured on both St. Mary of the Woods and Live in Aught-Three.
In 2005, McMurtry released his first studio album in three years. Childish Things again received high critical praise, winning the song and album of the year at the 5th Annual Americana Music Awards in Nashville, Tennessee. The album was perhaps McMurtry at his most political, as his working-class anthem "We Can't Make It Here" included direct criticism of George W. Bush, the Iraq War, and Wal-Mart. The music critic Robert Christgau ranked "We Can't Make It Here" as the best song of the 2000s.
McMurtry released his follow-up album to Childish Things in April 2008. Just Us Kids continued with the previous album's political themes and included the song Cheney's Toy, McMurtry's most direct criticism of George W. Bush so far. Like We Can't Make It Here from the previous album, Cheney's Toy was made available as a free Internet download.
McMurtry currently resides in Austin, Texas. When in Austin, McMurtry and The Heartless Bastards play a midnight set at The Continental Club on Wednesday nights. He is usually preceded by another Austin roots rock legend, Jon Dee Graham.
Since he went indie his music has just gotten better and better--
"Childish Things" Americana Album Of The Year 2006 &
"Just Us Kids" album and artist...nominated again in 2008.
Title track...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH5hTwWgHp0
Out In The Middle....from Live in Aught-Three
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmrXvkWO ... re=related
A really nice one...Cheney's Toy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKUE0RTu ... re=related
and a nice roots rocker..60 Acres
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMd04FVy ... re=related
"We Can't Make It Here Anymore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTW0y6kazWM
James made this 7 minute song about the honest man and those who would have us repressed (and "Cheney's Toy" also free) available for free, online-- the former just before the '04 elections. Good for McMurtry! In this age when protest songs are a thing of the past, McMurtry keeps it all honest!
Fortunately a large following of miscreants and iconoclasts.....
thank god for artists like McMurtry!
"Choctaw Bingo"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWEJPqJtZsk
"Melinda"....as McMurtry says at the beginning of one of his live numbers...time for the Prozac. His mini-novels in each song are usually uplifting somehow, for all their melancholy. Must be the honest grit of America shining through.
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=ds91CIwn6 ... ure=relmfu
Great song with dance appreciation
http://vimeo.com/1468871
GULF ROAD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rvXqR4GDwk
