January 27, 2006

James McMurtry

Hopefully you also have a collection full of those artists who reached out and grabbed you, but seemingly missed their handhold on the rest of the world. With every new release the fanbase seems to grow a bit, but not nearly as much as you’d expect. James McMurtry has always been one of those artists, for me. He writes from somewhere in the middle of my imaginary America; a place where people care about their neighbors, marvel at the disinterest our current administration shows for anything that isn’t profit driven, and people live it like they talk it… and James McMurtry is their leader. Sharing a kinship with writers like John Steinbeck and film-makers like Henry Ford, McMurtry also has more than a fleeting connection to musicians such as Woody Guthrie, Townes Van Zant, and Ghost of Tom Joad era Springsteen.

To check out McMurtry’s newest epic of the underclass, click here: We Can’t Make it Here There is an acoustic and a full band version available, I recommend the acoustic, but that’s just me.

“ ‘We Can’t Make It Here’ by James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards. Stark and wrenchingly direct, this may be the best American protest song since ‘Masters of War.’ Love it or hate it, you’ll never forget it...and this one’s actually a free download, at McMurtry’s web site.”
~Stephen King (writing in Entertainment Weekly)

James is playing at the Troubadour on Thursday January 26th and the CoachHouse on the 27th. The Coach House is recommended as he will be headlining there.