James McMurtry will release “The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy” on June 20 via New West Records. The 10-song collection was co-produced by McMurtry & Don Dixon (R.E.M., The Smithereens) and is his first album in four years. It follows his 2021 acclaimed New West debut, “The Horses and the Hounds”, which Uncut Magazine said “lifts storytelling-in-song to meticulous new levels” and AUK’s own Rick Bayles awarded 8/10 in his review here. The album features appearances by Sarah Jarosz, Charlie Sexton, Bonnie Whitmore, Bukka Allen, and more alongside his trusted backing band—BettySoo on accordion & backing vocals, Cornbread on bass, Tim Holt on guitar, and Daren Hess on drums.
As varied as they are, McMurtry’s new story-songs find inspiration in scraps from his family’s past: a rough pencil sketch by Ken Kesey that serves as the album cover, the hallucinations experienced by his father, the legendary writer Larry McMurtry, and an old poem by a family friend. Funny and sad often in the same breath, this album looks like adding a new chapter to a long career that has enjoyed a resurgence as young songwriters like Sarah Jarosz and Jason Isbell (who is namechecked on the new album) cite him as a formative influence.
The title track, released as a single, is a kind of squirrely blues. It features two mysterious figures who appear only to those slipping from reality, McMurtry name-checks a “Weird Al” deep cut, and depicts a tortured soul who doesn’t have to work a nine-to-five. McMurtry says, “The album title and that song comes from my stepmother, Faye. After my dad passed, she asked me if he ever talked to me about his hallucinations. He’d gone into dementia for a while before he died, but hadn’t mentioned to me anything about seeing things. She told me his favorite hallucinations were the black dog and the wandering boy. I took them and applied them to a fictional character.” Speaking to Rolling Stone, McMurtry added, “I stole one line from the late Keith Ferguson, who played bass in the Fabulous Thunderbirds back in the day. I didn’t know Keith, but Ronnie Johnson, our longtime ex-bassist, used to hang out with him some. Ronnie remembers Keith stirring his drink on the front porch as the sun came up and saying, ‘I like to sit up and watch the squares go to work.'”
For this project, McMurtry called on his old friend Don Dixon, who produced his third album, “Where’d You Hid the Body?“, way back in 1995. He says, “A couple of years ago I quit producing myself. I felt like I was repeating myself methodologically and stylistically. I needed to go back to producer school, so I brought in CC Adcock for Complicated Game, and then Ross Hogarth did The Horses & The Hounds. It seemed natural to revisit Mr. Dixon’s homeroom. I wanted to learn some of what he’s learned over the last thirty years.” In addition to his original compositions, the album features a pair of covers as bookends, ‘Laredo (Small Dark Something)’, an opioid blues & testimony from a part-time junkie losing a weekend to dope by Jon Dee Graham, and Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Broken Freedom Song.‘ McMurtry continues, “Kris was one of my major influences as a child. He was the first person that I recognised as a songwriter. I hadn’t really thought about where songs come from, but I started listening to Kristofferson as a songwriter and thinking, How do you do this? Kris had just passed not too long before we recorded ‘Broken Freedom Song.’”
Once the album was mixed, mastered, and sequenced, McMurtry recalled a pencil sketch he had found a few years earlier in his father’s effects. It seemed like it might make a good cover. “I knew it was me, but I didn’t realise who drew it. I asked my mom and my stepdad, and finally asked my stepmom, Faye, who said it looked like Ken Kesey’s work back in the ‘60s. She was married to Ken for forty years.” The Merry Pranksters—Kesey’s roving band of hippie activists and creators—stopped by a couple of times to visit Larry McMurtry and his family. “I don’t remember their first visit, the one documented in Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I was too young, but I do remember a couple of Ken’s visits. I guess he drew it on one of those later stops. I remembered it and thought it would be the perfect art, but I had to go back through the storage locker. It’s a miracle I found it again.”
“The Black Dog & The Wandering Boy” will be available across digital platforms, compact disc, and standard black vinyl. A limited khaki color vinyl edition, as well as a limited compact disc edition, both signed by McMurtry will be available via Independent Retailers. A limited blue color vinyl edition, as well as a limited compact disc edition, both signed by McMurtry are available for pre-order via New West Records here.
Track Listing:
1. Laredo (Small Dark Something)
2. South Texas Lawman
3. The Color of Night
4. Pinocchio in Vegas
5. Annie
6. The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy
7. Back to Coeur d’Alene
8. Sons of the Second Sons
9. Sailing Away
10. Broken Freedom Song
Here’s that single:
Oooooh …. can’t wait – I’m salivating already!!