James McMurtry will perform Sunday, June 29, at Wave. Fellow Texan and longtime friend Betty Soo will open the show.
McMurtry released his latest album, “The Black Dog and The Wandering Boy,” via New West records on June 20. The LP has some traces of the past to it: The album cover is a sketch that author Ken Kesey made of a young McMurtry; the title track takes its name from figures that his late father, the author Larry McMurtry, saw during dementia-related hallucinations, though the song deals with other matters.
The record also sees the return of producer Don Dixon (R.E.M., Smithereens) who helmed one of McMurtry’s finest albums, 1995’s “Where’d You Hide The Body.”
Always a keen observer, the veteran writer covers his friend Jon Dee Graham’s “Laredo (Small Dark Something)” and Kris Kristofferson’s “Broken Freedom Song” on a collection that stands as one of his best recordings.
McMurtry recently spoke with KMUW about the record and more.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
You worked with Don Dixon as co-producer on this album. What made him the right person for the job?
I worked with him on my third record 30 years ago. I learned a lot from him. A lot of my own production style kind of came from him. Several years ago, I stopped producing myself because I’d run out of tricks. I kind of wanted to go back to producer school. I had C.C. Adcock do the “Complicated Game” (2015) record. Ross Hogarth, who was an engineer on my first two records and worked for John Mellencamp back then, became a great producer himself, and so I used him for “The Horses and The Hounds” (2021).
I just wanted to see what Don had learned in the last 30 years. When digital first came in, Dixon was all over it. He didn’t have any of that “analog is better” prejudice like a lot of the older guys did. Back then, he knew that was where the business was going so, he learned it well. There have been a lot of technological advancements since we made that record [in 1995], and I knew that he’d be right with ’em, and I just wanted to see what he did. He uses a mix of new and old technology, just whatever works for him. He’s not tied in to any particular ideology.
The sense that I have from this record is that it was basically done live in the studio. Is that accurate?
Yeah, just go in, do three or four takes, see which one had the life to it. That’s one place where Don Dixon really shines. He can tell when the good take is going down. If I’m producing myself, I can’t really tell sometimes when it’s happened. I’ll go out there, do three takes, then go into the control room and listen to ’em. When you listen to three takes, that’s 15 minutes out of your day. If you’re going to do that with multiple songs, that eats up the day pretty fast, so Don being there and saying, “Stay right where you are, just punch [in on that] ending or fix that little place there, you got it,” that saves you 10 minutes because you didn’t have to go back and listen to two takes you’re not gonna use. Time is money, and time is energy, and we’ve got a limited amount of all.
You don’t strike me as someone who would do 75 takes of a song, though.
Depends on the song. Don and I did one, wore out a drummer on a song called “Lost In The Backyard” on the “Where’d You Hide The Body” record. For some reason, when the drummer got so tired and mad at us, that’s when we got the great take! [Laughs.]
[Laughs.]
You never know what’s gonna work.
“Sailing Away,” which is the second to last song on the album, is, I think, one of your best songs to date. There’s a little window in there about what it’s like to be a performer. There might be times when you’re wondering where you left your car keys back home or where the remote is.
Rodney Crowell said that one day. We were talking about forgetting lyrics and he said, “I do pretty good for three or four days, then in the middle of the fifth night out, I’m thinking, ‘Did I mow the lawn before I left Nashville?’” [Laughs.] I kind of got that from him.
You also cover Kris Kristofferson’s “Broken Freedom Song.” I understand he was an early inspiration and significant influence.
I was like 9 years old when his first record came out. I might have been even younger. I actually saw him play when I was about 9. I think “Jesus Was A Capricorn” was just about to come out. He was the first one that was identified to me as a songwriter. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be Johnny Cash, but I didn’t put any thought to where those songs came from. My stepdad had me listen to the “Me and Bobby McGee” record and [he said], “Yeah, this guy wrote those songs.” That’s when it dawned on me that people sit down, and they write these things. So, I saw him play when I was 9, and he and his band seemed to be having such a great time that I thought for sure, I wanted to do that.
Did you get to know him at all?
I knew him enough to say hi. His guitar player, Stephen Bruton, lived in Austin, and we were friends. But Kris lived in Hawaii. He didn’t come around very much. He said he liked the big island of Hawaii because it reminded him of south Texas when he was a kid: All the kids were brown skinned and went to school barefoot.
Betty Soo is on this record, and she’s opening your show at Wave. I was impressed when I saw her do that last year because it’s not every opener who can capture the headliner’s audience.
She’s been doing it a while. She’s got the opener craft down. You really have to connect with an audience when you’ve got 45 minutes, and they didn’t pay to see you. You gotta grab ’em, so she does.
