James McMurtry

Born into a literary family as the offspring of Larry McMurtry, the acclaimed Lone Star novelist behind The Last Picture Show, Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment, and The Evening Star, James McMurtry emerged on March 18, 1962, in Fort Worth, Texas, carrying forward a narrative impulse through songcraft rather than prose. After his parents split when he turned seven, his formative years unfolded mainly in Leesburg, Virginia, before he enrolled at a boarding school in Orange, Virginia, where he began crafting original material on his own. College years brought early club performances, followed by a stint in Alaska and a return to Texas, where assorted day jobs sustained him while he kept composing.

A 1987 entry in the Kerrville Folk Festival’s annual songwriting contest earned him finalist status on a friend’s suggestion, and his father’s screenplay Falling From Grace—slated for direction by John Mellencamp—opened another door when Larry shared a demo tape. Impressed, Mellencamp offered to helm a debut record; Columbia soon signed McMurtry, issuing Too Long in the Wasteland in 1989. That same year he appeared briefly as Jimmy Rainey in the television version of Lonesome Dove and joined the temporary ensemble Buzzin’ Cousins—alongside Mellencamp, Dwight Yoakam, John Prine, and Joe Ely—for the film’s soundtrack.

The track “Painting by Numbers” climbed to Number 33 on Mainstream Rock Radio while the album reached Number 125 on the Billboard Top 200, drawing favorable notices yet failing to secure long-term label support. Follow-ups Candyland in 1992 and Where’d You Hide the Body in 1995 went uncharted, prompting his exit from Columbia. Sugar Hill Records then became home; the 1997 release It Had to Happen, helmed by multi-instrumentalist Lloyd Maines, revealed a more grounded sonic palette and seasoned perspective that reviewers praised, with Maines returning for 1998’s Walk Between the Raindrops. Saint Mary of the Woods arrived in 2002 on the same imprint, spotlighting the darkly comic “Choctaw Bingo,” and marked McMurtry’s final Sugar Hill project. The song later surfaced on the 2008 Toby Keith vehicle Beer For My Horses.

A vigorous concert document, Live in Aught-Three, captured McMurtry and his road unit the Heartless Bastards in 2004, its unvarnished energy informing the richer arrangements of 2005’s Childish Things, which housed “We Can't Make It Here,” a pointed portrait of life under George W. Bush that Village Voice critic Robert Christgau named the decade’s standout composition. Lightning Rod Records issued Just Us Kids in 2008 to widespread critical acclaim, by which point McMurtry maintained a steady U.S. touring schedule, occasional overseas jaunts, and regular Wednesday appearances at Austin’s Continental Club. A performance from the Just Us Kids European trek, recorded in Amsterdam and augmented by Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan, became the CD/DVD set Live in Europe.

Extended road commitments delayed the next studio effort, though McMurtry contributed “Big Things” to Cold and Bitter Tears: The Songs of Ted Hawkins and “Comfort's Just a Rifle Shot Away” to Dreamer: A Tribute to Kent Finlay. After seven years he moved to Complicated Game Records for the album Complicated Game, produced by C.C. Adcock alongside Mike Napolitano. When the COVID-19 pandemic halted 2020 touring, weekly livestreams kept him connected to fans and allowed new songs to surface; several of those pieces anchored 2021’s The Horses and the Hounds, his debut for New West Records.