Quest for new music leads to James McMurtry

My husband is a huge music buff whose collection of music would provide me with blog material for many years to come. He is constantly searching for good new music. His most recent discovery is James McMurtry's new release “Childish Things.” Last weekend he introduced me to the title song, “Childish Things” which piqued my interest. I then moved on to the next cut “We Can't Make it Here”, this song completely blew me away. It is very political and quite controversial. Stephen King calls it, "The best American protest song since (Dylan's) 'Masters of War'. You can listen to this song and learn more about McMurty at this website: http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/links/0,,466577,00.html#artist_name.

Amazon categorizes his work as Alt-Country and Americana. I find that his style is similar to Steve Earle and his storytelling ability reminds me of Bruce Springsteen.

It turns out McMurtry has been around for awhile. He was born in 1962. His father is the novelist Larry McMurtry who wrote “Lonesome Dove” ~ which just happens to be one of my favorite novels. He received his first guitar as a present from his father when he was seven. His mother taught him to play it. His early influences include Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. He began songwriting when he was 25 or 26. He received his biggest break when his father introduced his work to John Mellencamp. From there Mellencamp co-produced McMurtry's debut album in 1989 “Too Long in the Wasteland”. “Childish Things” is his seventh album and was released in the fall of 2005.