James McMurtry

The BBC’s Bob Harris called James McMurtry “the most vital lyricist in America today.” His songs have been masterfully covered — but arguably still never quite equalled — by two of the biggest living legends in Americana and Texas music, Robert Earl Keen (“Levelland,” “Out Here in the Middle”) and Ray Wylie Hubbard (“Choctaw Bingo”). And Stephen King calls him “the truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation.” Simply put, James McMurtry has raised the bar in his field so high over the course of the last three and a half decades that about the only artist who can consistently match or surpass him for gale force intensity is McMurtry himself. From his impossibly arresting 1989 debut, Too Long in the Wasteland, to this last year’s The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy, he’s demonstrated time and again how in the hands of a master, a four-to-eight-minute song can capture as much vivid imagery, three-dimensional character development, and visceral emotional punch as any great work of literature or film. As Voice of America once observed, “James McMurtry writes songs filled with characters so real that you’re sure they’re going to climb out of the speakers and look you in the eyes.”

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