James McMurtry

Like most music critics, I have a long list of pet artists who remain criminally underexposed to the general public. Most of them I'm happy to keep to myself and the other music nudniks, but the persistent obscurity of James McMurtry nags at me like a sore tooth. Why isn't this guy famous, or at least critically revered on the same level as fellow maverick country-rockers like John Hiatt and Steve Earle and younger upstarts like Ryan Adams? He's American popular music's best lyricist since Dylan, and his chugging, elemental brand of roots rock, at its best, frames his words and world-weary voice so perfectly as to sound effortless, as if he and his band just coined all the chords on the spot. He's the Raymond Carver of singer-songwriters, an absolute master at unveiling complex truths with deceptively simple technique and a rigorous lack of pretense. In other words, there's no else like him in American music.

McMurtry's seventh studio album, Childish Things, marks a return to form after 2002's St. Mary of the Woods, an elliptical and relentlessly bleak album that remains his least satisfying. All of his familiar themes are back: Nostalgia for childhood and a lost way of life that probably wasn't all that great to begin with; the struggle of maintaining familiar relationships and moving on from failed ones; and his signature topic, the decline of the American heartland.

It's a pleasure to hear McMurtry finding new soil to till in these old fields, but Childish Things achieves greatness when he breaks new ground and ventures into politics, a subject only hinted at on his previous albums. "We Can't Make It Here," a song written for the 2004 presidential elections, blows away every half-assed protest anthem from that year, but even better is the album's finale, "Holiday," which ranks as McMurtry's most Dylanesque work yet. Here, in the rambling travelogue song structure he first explored on St. Mary in the Woods' "Choctaw Bingo," McMurtry uses a family Thanksgiving road trip as the lead-in to a devastating image of a middle-aged National Guardsman, sitting in an airport waiting to ship out to Iraq. It's a brilliant sneak attack, as what sounds like another of McMurtry's trenchant but sympathetic portraits of American family life gives way to a darker critique of the forces that drive our culture. "There's something inside that won't let us be," McMurtry sings. "And it's damn near as deadly as Texans on ice."

Through it all, McMurtry the guitarist has never sounded better, reeling off his trademark chiming leads and honky-tonk chords over his veteran rhythm section, bassist Ronnie Johnson and drummer Darren Hess. And he sounds like he's having fun, something he didn't do too much of on St. Mary in the Woods, singing a cheeky ode to rocky romance on "Restless" and dueting with country legend Joe Ely on a rockin' version of the bluegrass standard "Slew Foot."

Will this be the album that finally earns McMurtry the wide audience he deserves? Probably not, but it should. He's one of the last of a dying breed, the redneck intellectual, a guy who can sell a lyric about seducing his woman by "cutting cards and quoting Proust" without missing a beat. And he's capturing the American Midwest of the here and now -- not the mythologized, amber waves of grain bullshit of Hollywood and Nashville -- in a way that's virtually unique among writers in any medium. In these days of Red State/Blue State divisiveness, we need this guy more than ever. - Andy Hermann

Childish Things follows James McMurtry's well-received live album by a little over a year and maintains the high standards set by that release while occasionally upping the stakes. The raw yet full roots rock-sound remains dominated by McMurtry's tough, no-frills guitar chords and longtime backing musicians, drummer Daren Hess and bassist Ronnie Johnson. The three-piece instrumentation is augmented by subtle yet effective use of fiddle, organ, mandolin, and even horns on the opening track. Nonetheless, the spotlight remains on McMurtry's lyrics and gruff, Southern-fried vocals. He returns to the "middle-American family gathering" story well again on "Memorial Day" and the closing "Holiday," both of which revisit a dysfunctional reunion. McMurtry's bone-dry voice and evocative lyrics haven't lost a sliver of their sharpness, which keeps the songs mesmerizing, if not exactly cutting edge. He also adds a few covers this time; Peter Case's terrific "Old Part of Town" (originally recorded for a Case tribute album) and the country standard "Ole Slew Foot," (shortened to just "Slew Foot" and featuring a stirring guest vocal from Joe Ely) are most welcome, as both are given arrangements that slot into McMurtry's established sound. Even if some of the predominantly mid-tempo melodies don't jump out, the lyrics generally do. "I measure out my life in coffee grounds" and "the color snapshots I sent you, all came out in black and white," both from "Charlemagne's Home Town," are just two examples of McMurtry's ability to throw literary curve balls. He gets political -- and angry -- on the album's longest and best track, "We Can't Make It Here," which builds in Crazy Horse-styled intensity as the singer spills out lyrics that describe the less fortunate who have lost sight of the American dream, with stops at the Iraq war and the outsourcing of Wal Mart merchandise. McMurtry's low-boil vocals and lazy yet gritty spoken-sung delivery perfectly encapsulate but never overplay his bitterness towards those situations, as he remains the ultimate observer on another classy entry into his catalog. ~ Hal Horowitz, All Music Guide