James McMurtry is a supremely gifted songwriter who understands the fundamentals of American life that most people overlook. For the most part, these are the pains, troubles, and societal changes and challenges confronting every tier of the working class though his lyrical tales are often far deeper than that. He translates these observations into what equates to lyrical short stories and then brings them to life as Americana-rock tunes filled with his jaggedly beautiful guitar textures. The Texas troubadour is also known to tour for years in support of an album before releasing new music, so you might say his performance at Lark Hall in Albany, New York on Tuesday, September 19th was in support of his 2021 album The Horses and the Hounds.
With his no-frills approach that emphasizes the songs over showmanship, McMurtry delivered a set that touched on a career spanning more than three decades. Opening with “Lobo Town,” McMurtry wasted no time in getting down to business as he railed off the vocals and let Tim Holt lay into a serious guitar solo. The old faithful rocker “Childish Things” gave way to the bouncy and sharp “For All I Know” before Holt grabbed his accordion to do “Copper Canteen.” With its heartfelt lyrics and elegant soloing that captured the wide open fields of western Canada, the newer tune “Canola Fields” proved once again that it is among McMurtry’s best songs, and the crowd went wild when it was followed up by what is without question his best-known tune, the sprawling “Choctaw Bingo.” Both Holt and McMurtry laid down some serious guitar chops throughout these wildly rambling verses, with the latter careening away with his feedback-laced shredding. The double-hit of two powerful guitar-driven tunes was contrasted by McMurtry grabbing his twelve-string acoustic guitar and serenading the audience without a mike on “Blackberry Winter.”
Other highlights included the “happy” song “If I Don’t Bleed” – the kind of rocker that would’ve been a hit in the early 90s – the potent anti-war tune “Operation Never Mind,” the comforting nostalgia of “You Got To Me,” and the longtime favorite “No More Buffalo.” The rapped ode to getting old “Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call” found the crowd holding up their specs to the chorus of “keep on losing my glasses” and even though it felt like McMurtry abruptly cut the tune short, it served as a nice runway for the now classic Texas twanger “Levelland” and the set-closing “Too Long In The Wasteland” that found this troubadour capping it all off by chainsawing his way through the guitar lines.
While it’s baffling that McMurtry has never gained the level of fandom as someone like Jason Isbell, it’s a testament to the power of his talent and catalog that he can still spend most of the year on the road drawing decent-sized crowds. Though he often spreads his new albums out by several years, his solo acoustic encore of a new song called “Pinocchio in Vegas” – a darkly silly song that offered colorful references to the fairy tale through a modern lens – left the audience with the hope that we may not be waiting as long as we think for the next album.
