James McMurtry will release The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy Saturday (Australian time) via New West Records. The 10-song collection was co-produced by McMurtry and Don Dixon (R.E.M., The Smithereens) and is his first album in four years.
The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy features appearances by Sarah Jarosz, Charlie Sexton, pat mAcdonald, 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.
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, an old poem by a family friend. The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy adds 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.
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 realize 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.” It’s a fitting image for an album that scavenges personal history for inspiration.
“You follow the words where they lead. If you can get a character, maybe you can get a story. If you can set it to a verse-chorus structure, maybe you can get a song. A song can come from anywhere, but the main inspiration is fear. Specifically fear of irrelevance. If you don’t have songs, you don’t have a record. If you don’t have a record, you don’t have a tour. You gotta keep putting out work.”
For The Black Dog & The Wandering Boy, McMurtry called on his old friend Don Dixon, who produced his third album, Where’d You Hide the Body?, 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.” McMurtry and his band worked to create something that sounds spontaneous, as though he’s writing the songs as you hear them. They were open to odd experiments, weird whims, and happy accidents. 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 says, “Kris was one of my major influences as a child. He was the first person that I recognized 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.’”
James McMurtry’s 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 NOW via NEW WEST RECORDS.
The Black Dog & The Wandering Boy 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
James McMurtry On Tour:
6/19 – Tractor Tavern – Seattle, WA
6/20 – Tractor Tavern – Seattle, WA
6/21 – The District Bar – Spokane, WA
6/22 – Great Northern – Whitefish, MT
6/24 – Zootown Arts Community Center – Missoula, MT
6/25 – The ELM – Bozeman, MT
6/26 – The Commonwealth Room South – Salt Lake City, UT
6/27 – Aggie Theatre Fort – Collins, CO
6/28 – Bluebird Theater – Denver, CO
6/29 – Wave – Wichita, KS
8/15 – Fitzgerald’s – Berwyn, IL
9/4 – Proud Larry’s – Oxford, MS
9/5 – Saturn – Birmingham, AL
9/6 – 40 Watt Club – Athens, GA
9/7 – Visulite Theatre – Charlotte, NC
9/9 – Cat’s Cradle – Carrboro, NC
9/10 – The Grey Eagle – Asheville, NC
9/11 – Bijou Theatre – Knoxville, TN
9/12 – Woodward Theatre – Cincinnati, OH
9/13 – The Athenaeum Theatre – Columbus , OH
9/14 – Magic Bag – Ferndale, MI
9/16 – Horseshoe Tavern – Toronto, ON
9/17 – Thunderbird Cafe & Music Hall – Pittsburgh, PA
9/18 – Birchmere – Alexandria, VA
9/19 – World Cafe Live – Philadelphia, PA
9/20 – Le Poisson Rouge – New York, NY
9/21 – The Annex – Norfolk, VA
9/23 – Charleston Pour House – Charleston, SC
9/24 – Capitol Theatre Macon – Macon, GA
9/25 – Standard Deluxe: Little House Concert – Waverly, AL
9/26 – Saenger Theater – Hattiesburg, MS
9/27 – Chickie Wah Wah – New Orleans, LA