Austin, Texas based singer-songwriter James McMurtry is pretty soft spoken over the phone, preferring to let his music speak for him.
The son of popular author Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment) has become a blunt spoken, acclaimed songwriter since the late ’80s. He will be making his first visit to Lethbridge, Sept. 27 and bringing his band to the Geomatic Attic. He sounds like a mix between Ray Wylie Hubbard, Lou Reed and Johnny Cash.
“ I’ve never played Lethbridge before. I played a solo show in Calgary years ago,” he said from the middle of Washington state, on the road to Seattle.
“It should be a pretty loud and raucous show,” he said.
But while the band is red hot and he is an impressive guitar player, his lyrics are an important part of his music, as a lot of his songs focus a lot on the poor underclass.
“I guess they are. I run into a lot of that,” he said.
While his dad is a renown author, he learned more from him by listening to him than reading his books.
“I think I probably got more of his eye for detail from listening to him talk than than reading. I don’t read a lot of books. He comes from a long line of Texas storytellers, with a strong oral tradition,’ he said.
“And we always had a lot of records around the house which inspired me,” he said, adding Kris Kristofferson was the first songwriter to really speak to him.
“He was the first one I recognized as a songwriter, I never thought about where songs came from before I heard him,” he said adding musically band like Crazy Horse and the Band influenced him.
It has been a few years since there has been new music from McMurtry. The biggest project has been remastering and re-releasing “Live in Aught Three “ and “Childish Things” on vinyl.
“Vinyl wasn’t as big a few years ago. Now they’ve got the technology to rip them to MP3s ,” he said.
“The only problem with vinyl is you can’t do longer songs. Anything over 18 minutes and the needle drags.”
He is pleased with the final result, and while he left the job in the hands of respected professionals.
“The music hasn’t changed, it’s just changing the colours a bit. It’s not like re-mixing where it’s a different song,” he said.
While his music over the past few years has been very political and very anti-George Bush and the war in Iraq, the new music isn’t.
“We have one new song in the set. It’s a goofy rock song. But this new administration, I can’t quite wrap my head around it. It looks like nothing has changed, but some things have,” he said adding it is now possible for people like him to get health care.
“I’m 49 and self-employed but I have high blood pressure, which means I didn’t qualify before. Now there’s a new program called PCI and I qualify,” he said adding while some 700,000 people qualify for it, only 319,000 have enrolled.
“ I don’t think the Republicans want people to know about it,” he said.
“A lot has changed, but a lot hasn’t. We’re still at war. But nobody can really figure it out. Somebody must be profiting from it off it because we‘re still over there,” he said.
The show begins at 8 p.m., Sept. 27. Tickets cost $37.50 or $40 at the door.
