featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
August 21, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
On Wednesdays, we select one notable artist from our kind of music, sifting through their catalog and teasing out just thirty (30) tracks that we can identify as our favorites. So far we've given our Lookback Machine treatment to Jayhawks, Lucinda Williams, and Maria McKee/Lone Justice. It poses a fun challenge for each artist, especially the acts who might have a larger number of releases.
For this Episode, we turn our attention to James McMurtry. The Texan released his first album, Too Long In the Wasteland, in 1989, championed and produced by John Mellencamp and largely backed by Mellencamp's own band. After a second, much delayed Mellencamp production (92's Candyland), McMurtry settled into his groove, working with smaller indie labels like Sugar Hill and Lightning Rod to create a catalog of classic americana records in the ensuing decade. With 2008's Just Us Kids, he seemed to enter into a later-period resurgence, his songs sometimes taking on a more deliberate, outspoken political tone. More than some of the other artists we've featured on our Lookback posts, McMurtry's more recent releases are as well represented on our favorites playlist as his classics, especially 2021's strong New West collection, Horses and the Hounds. Recent words confirms that the songwriter has been working on new songs lately with Don Dixon, who produced 1998's Where'd You Hide the Body. With a recurring residency at Austin's Continental Club, James McMurtry has stayed sharp as a writer and a performer, one of our most skilled literary acts.
JAMES McMURTRY: thirty favorites
- "Painting By Numbers" Too Long In the Wasteland (Sony, 89)
- "Song For a Deck Hand's Daughter" Too Long In the Wasteland
- "I'm Not From Here" Too Long In the Wasteland
- "Too Long In the Wasteland" Too Long In the Wasteland
- "Safe Side" Candyland (Sony, 92)
- "Candyland" Candyland
- "Levelland" Where'd You Hide the Body (Sony, 95)
- "Where'd You Hide the Body" Where'd You Hide the Body
- "Paris" It Had To Happen (Sugar Hill, 97)
- "Peter Pan" It Had To Happen
- "For All I Know" It Had To Happen
- "No More Buffalo" It Had To Happen
- "Jaws Of Life" It Had To Happen
- "Walk Between the Raindrops" Walk Between the Raindrops (Sugar Hill, 98)
- "Saint Mary Of the Woods" Saint Mary Of the Woods (Sugar Hill, 02)
- "Out Here In the Middle" "Saint Mary Of the Woods
- "Choctaw Bingo" Saint Mary Of the Woods
- "Childish Things" Childish Things (Lightning Rod, 05)
- "We Can't Make It Here" Childish Things
- "Just Us Kids" Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod, 08)
- "Hurricane Party" Just Us Kids
- "Ruby and Carlos" Just Us Kids
- "Copper Canteen" Complicated Game (Complicated Game, 15)
- "Ain't Got a Place" Complicated Game
- "How'm I Gonna Find You Now" Complicated Game
- "South Dakota" Complicated Game
- "Canola Fields" Horses and the Hounds (New West, 21)
- "If It Don't Bleed" Horses and the Hounds
- "Decent Man" Horses and the Hounds
- "What's the Matter" Horses and the Hounds
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