JAMES McMURTRY : THE HORSES AND THE HOUNDS

1. Canola Fields
2. If It Don't Bleed
3. Operation Never Mind
4. Jackie
5. Decent Man
6. Vaquero
7. The Horses And The Hounds
8. Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call
9. What's The Matter
10. Blackberry Winter

Label : New West Records

Release Date : August 20, 2021

Length : 47:18

Review (Pop Matters) : Listening to James McMurtry's darkest songs has always felt like hanging at a late-night diner or dive bar or even midday laundromat while eavesdropping on a compelling - sometimes horrible and probably embellished - tale that may or may not be true. You lean in as close as possible to overhear without being noticed, but you never get all the details, making it even more scintillating. McMurtry gives you more reasons than ever to bend an ear his way on his first album in over six years. He spends most of his time reminiscing about murdering an old friend, reconnecting with an unrequited love, ambiguous "accidents" that may or may not have been murder, outrunning the law for reasons never revealed, and a frustrating inability to locate his spectacles. The Horses and the Hounds reunites McMurtry with the power of electricity. Where 2015's acoustic-based Complicated Game was, like all his releases, rich in imagery and narrative depth, plugging back in adds the grit and punch that has powered some of his best work over the years, from Where'd You Hide the Body to It Had to Happen, Saint Mary of the Woods, and beyond. It's the elasticity of McMurtry's electric rhythm playing that has placed him ahead of most other singer-songwriters in his class. He's able to groove and rock out while he delivers tales poetic in structure and cinematic in scope. However, this time McMurtry turns the crunch over to Austin guitar master David Grissom, whose nimble fingers have helped raise the roof on sessions with Joe Ely, John Mellencamp, his own Texas supergroup, Storyville, and many others over the years. Along for the ride is Charlie Sexton, another Austinite who once fronted, along with Doyle Bramhall II, his own Texas supergroup that shared the same rhythm section as Storyville - that being Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon of Stevie Ray Vaughan's Double Trouble - the Arc Angels. There are also percussion masters Daren Hess, Kenny Aronoff, and Stan Lynch; organist Bukka Allen; bassist Sean Hurley; and backing vocalists Betty Soo, Akina Adderly, and Randy Garibay, Jr. The players at times rock hard, other times they color around the lyrics, offering up sympathetic backing that encapsulates the stories that pour from McMurtry's pen and voice, accompanied occasionally by his acoustic guitar. Another piece to the puzzle is the return of Ross Hogarth, who was behind the boards of not only both Candyland and Wasteland but also Storyville's A Piece of Your Soul, working with Grissom. A resume that also includes the Black Crowes, Gov't Mule, R.E.M., John Mellencamp, and many others, Hogarth knows how to get the big rock sound while keeping the lyrics front and center. Upon first listen, The Horses and the Hounds is reminiscent of most other McMurtry albums, but as it unfolds, new textures appear and settle into the mix like they've always belonged. The biggest surprise is the way the backing vocalists are used, especially on the title track and "Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call". The counter vocals on both songs add a dimension previously unheard on a McMurtry record. But, like always, it's the stories and the lines that color them that stay with you long after the music's done: the hiding out under the narrator's hat in the back of the bus in "Canola Fields"; the mule that leads a "Decent Man" to his destiny; the "white cross in the borrow ditch" where "Jackie" goes off the road. These and many other moments illustrate the level at which McMurtry works and always has. It also makes The Horses and the Hounds well worth the wait.

Review (Ameridana Highways) : If an artist sticks around long enough, he or she will eventually have a chance to see that the blacktop on life's highway is starting to break up a bit, and maybe the dusty, dirty end of the road is beginning to come into view. It's not about mortality, really, but just figuring out one's place in whatever very finite amount of life is left. Some writers.don't deal with this so well (you'll often find them lashing out at the "younger generations" of musicians on social media). Others find it oddly comforting. Legendary songwriter James McMurtry's new album, The Horses and the Hounds, puts him firmly in the latter camp - looking back, sure, but not unhappy with where he finds himself now. The breadth of McMurtry's storytelling can be found encapsulated in the album's first track. "Canola Fields," in just under five minutes, covers both a not-quite relationship that spans more than three decades, plus the details of the two lives around it. The mid-tempo country rocker flashes back to youthful misadventures - "That white knuckle ride back from Santa Cruz" - and stabs at adulthood - "kids and careers and a vague sense of order." But, in the autumn of his own life, while driving past harvested fields where only "brown rusty contour lines" remain, he can look back at the brief moment where time stopped passing, "Cashing in on a thirty-year crush/You can't be young and do that." Delivered in McMurtry's unruffled drawl and bulleted by David Grissom's punchy acoustic solo, it's a story both hopeful and wistful, with a character both satisfied with his memories and looking to have maybe another moment or two before life winds down. And it's as good as storytelling gets. McMurtry addresses aging and acceptance a bit more directly on the next track, "If It Don't Bleed," A little more electrified than its predecessor (and featuring former Heartbreaker Stan Lynch on percussion), the protagonist here is doing.OK, but insists on moving forward - "Give it all you got/While you still got a more or less functional body and mind." And the guy's got room for everyone - "I don't mind if you don't look like me/I can share my bread and wine" (again, McMurtry doesn't use his "elder statesman" status to take gratuitous potshots at the kids). The generally upbeat tune is lent extra bounce by electric guitar work from Grissom and slide player Harry Smith. Overall, in fact, The Horses and the Hounds, aside from its sublime storytelling, is eminently listenable. If all you're looking for is an in-the-car-and-at-the-bar record, it's here for the taking - guitars, just the right amount of accordion sprinkled in (on "Vaquero," a tribute to late "Lonesome Dove" screenwriter Bill Wittliff), and a general vibe which makes it perfect driving down a dirt road just a little too fast. But it's the storytelling that makes the record truly special. "Operation Never Mind" is an unfortunately timely missive about the disposability of our service members - "The country boys will do the fighting/Now that fighting's all a country boy can do." "What's The Matter" is a musician-on-the-road song with a twist: the largely untold perspective from the ones left behind - "I get to travel and you gotta stay home/You're gettin' tired of raising them kids alone" - and the conflict inherent when one half is itinerant and the other is not allowed to be. And "Blackberry Winter," with its fragments of images of a dissolving relationship - "The landlady won't like the stains on the rugs and the curtains/That's just wear and tear such as happens in life" - finds the singer moving on, yet again. Neither age nor letting go seem to rattle McMurtry. Rather, he's interested in what's on the road after the blacktop ends. Song I Can't Wait to Hear Live: "Canola Fields" - beautifully written and with a soaring chorus that anyone can sing along to. The Horses and the Hounds was produced and mixed by Ross Hogarth, recorded by Hogarth, Pat Manske and Joseph Holguin and mastered by Richard Dodd. All songs were written by James McMurtry, with co-writing credits going to David Grissom, Daren Hess, Cornbread and Hogarth. Additional musicians on the album include Grissom (electric and acoustic guitars, mando guitar), Hess (drums), Sean Hurley (bass guitar), Kenny Aronoff (percussion), Stan Lynch (percussion), Charlie Sexton (high strung guitar, bouzouki, mando guitar), Bukka Allen (organ, accordion, keys), Red Young (organ), Loren Gold (organ, piano), Stephen Barber (piano, Wurlitzer), Jon Gilutin (piano, keys), Harry Smith (slide guitar, mandolin, banjo), John McFee (banjo), Cameron Stone (cello) and Randy Garibay, Jr., Betty Soo, Akina Adderly and Harmoni Kelley (harmony and background vocals).

Review (Saving Country Music) : Some love to talk a big game about changing the world through music, and some get busy doing it. While so many in modern "Americana" think the way speak truth to power is to call anyone you have a tacit disagreement with on Twitter a racist, and saddle your songs with hollow and transparent platitudes that only pander to constituencies, James McMurtry has been changing hearts and minds for over 30 years now by using the power of song, story, and character to allow the listener to walk in someone else's shoes and broaden their perspective on life. You can rage against white privilege, or you can tell the story of an impoverished neighborhood like McMurtry famously did in "We Can't Make It Here." You can make fun of rednecks, or you can speak their language-from fishing tackle to guns and ammo-and expose the poetic value of America's rural forgotten. You can rage against fighting forgotten wars, or you can pen a song like "Operation Never Mind" that can be found here on McMurtry's first album in six years, and expose exactly why they've been forgotten. Damn good timing for a song like this, as we all watch a 20-year effort in Afghanistan implode right in front of our very eyes. James McMurtry is old school. He knows how character and nuance is worth so much more than namby pamby bromides. He can evoke the dimension of location in a song like few others, rattling off meticulous observational details of specific towns and cities as good as Google. McMurtry is a genius of keen insight, sponging up the mannerisms of people and the contours of culture in every town he travels to, and utilizing it in sculpting his songs into masterworks like Rodin. But McMurtry-who turns 60 years old next year-doesn't devote too much time on The Horses and the Hounds to trying to reshape society in some more perfect image. He also makes it patently clear he is not interest in fading away quietly. The album starts off as your pretty standard McMurtry release-exquisitely written of course, and fairly mild mannered as it unfolds. But then starting with the title track, The Horses and the Hounds breaks out into a straight up rock record. Surprisingly, and somewhat refreshingly, McMurtry doesn't just rely on lyricism to carry the day. The Horses and the Hounds was produced by Ross Hogarth who helped engineer McMurtry's first two albums, and guitarist David Grissom who played on those first two albums shows up as well. In other words, they got the band back together, and if the attempt was to tap into that early-career McMurtry magic and energy, they dutifully succeeded. You get some excellent, late-career additions to your James McMurtry catalog, like the early release song "Canola Fields," where all your favorite elements of McMurtry's songwriting unfold. You get to witness McMurtry make you identify with a murderer in the song "Decent Man." He can make a 5-minute song unfold like a novel, where you feel like you know the protagonist first hand, and have just experienced and hours-long epic. But don't pass judgement on someone if they find even more favor with a song like "Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call," with it's talk sung verses and aggressive attitude. "Catchy" is probably not a diagnosis most would consider for a James McMurtry song, but you'll be walking around for the rest of the day, humming," Keep losing my glasses, glasses." to yourself. The next song "What's The Matter" is a similar experience. It's still the excellent writing we love from McMurtry, but the infectiousness and energy that was more indicative of his early career has returned. James McMurtry's last album Complicated Game from 2015 ended up being considered the Album of the Year around here. Not sure if a similar fate awaits The Horses and the Hounds. But it makes a good argument for being one of the most enjoyable, and thus, maybe one of the most accessible albums of James McMurtry's career. If McMurtry was looking to mash the accelerator and not let the old man in as he soldiers past the three decade mark in the songwriting trenches, he certainly accomplishes this on The Horses and the Hounds.

Review (Holler) : Time was when you could count on a new James McMurtry album, filled with his picturesque storytelling and sharply observed writing, every three years. That hot streak cooled after 2008's Just Us Kids. We had to wait seven years for 2015's Complicated Games and now another six for this. But one listen to any of the 10 tracks on The Horses and the Hounds and it's clear why it takes McMurtry so long to create his music. Like his iconic father, novelist Larry McMurtry, James creates detailed stories filled with distinctive personalities, but fashions them within the context of four-minute songs. He's been at it for over 30 years and just keeps improving with The Horses and the Hounds, his latest and arguably finest in an already impressive catalog. From the opening 'Canola Fields', where the protagonist reflects on an unrequited relationship while crossing the titular territory in Southern Alberta, to the treatise on how soldiers who protect the country are ignored in 'Operation Never Mind' ("We won't let the cameras near the fighting / that way we won't have another Vietnam"), the singer/songwriter finds a perfect balance of pathos and humility to drive home his stories of the working class. There has seldom been a more devastating and accurate description of a middle-aged backing musician who leaves his family behind to stay on the road than in 'What's the Matter'. The lyrics - "Blood pressure's up and I gotta take pills / If the food don't kill me, the alcohol will / Know it ain't healthy, but this is what I do"- capture the frustration and dead-end nature of a life the vocalist never thought he would be resigned to. McMurtry channels his songs through his gruff yet sensitive talk/singing baritone as if he's exporting them straight from his heart to yours. His literate rhymes are sharp, natural and never forced, arriving fast and furious in every verse and chorus. It also helps to have Ross Hogarth, a talented producer/mixer, in to sculpt the sound. Along with a band led by guitarist David Grissom, the combination crafts tough, sturdy Americana that supports McMurtry's poetically visceral sketches of those trying to keep afloat, in a world where dreams die quickly. The album's most unusual moment is on the near funk/ rap of 'Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call', where McMurtry assumes the persona of a truck driver trying to navigate a crumbling relationship while driving his rig from Florida to Atlanta, complaining about "losing my glasses". It's wryly funny, sad and spoken with the ironic style of a. Tom Petty or J.J. Cale - the soulful backing singers offering extra spice. Each selection could be expanded into a motion picture; likely a grainy indie flick, perhaps filmed in black and white. McMurtry defines his characters with the eye of someone who knows them well, perhaps better than they know themselves. That imbues this set with a cinematic quality few other songwriters of his generation can match. James McMurtry has always been one of Americana's finest artists, but with The Horses and the Hounds, he even bests his previous work for an album undoubtedly on the shortlist as one of 2021's finest.

Review (Written In Music) : Enige tijd geleden zagen we James McMurtry nog aan het werk. In Oostende op het podium van Manuscript, een bescheiden kroegje, het podium neemt zowat de helft van de ruimte in, gaf de singer-songwriter met Texaanse roots ondersteund door zijn vaste tourtrio met Darren Hess en gitarist Jim Holt een fijn concert. Naast een uitgekiende bloemlezing doorheen zijn repertoire bevatte de setlist enkele nummers van Complicated Game. Dat werkstuk dateert uit 2015 en vier jaar na zijn passage aan de Belgische kust heeft is er een opvolger. The Horses and the Hounds brengt McMurtry terug samen met producer Ross Hogarth, die bediende de mengtafel van de in '89 bij het onder toezicht van John Mellencamp tot stand gekomen Too Long In Wasteland, een eerste voorbeeld van de opmerkelijk beeldrijke songschrijverij in een parlando benadering. Op de eerste langspeler voor New West is gitarist David Grissom terug, de kompaan van Joe Ely die eveneens bij Mellencamp actief was en ook bij de tweede langspeler van McMurtry betrokken. Bijna drie decennia later zorgt hij voor geïnspireerde elektrische gitaarbijdragen, samen met Charlie Sexton. Canola Fields is een epos over het familieleven en het gemis ervan, haast achteloos gemompeld maar weerom zo'n sterk verhaal dat je meevoert in een prairielandschap dat naar Canada leidt op een onweerstaanbaar countrynesk klankbord. In het op stevige ritmiek gebouwde If I Don't Bleed worden Grissoms vloeiende akkoorden verrijkt met een slide bijdrage van Harry Smith. Het is niet de enige song die herinnert aan de verrichtingen van Warren Zevon, McMurtry vermoedt dat de geest in de studio rondwaarde hoewel die nooit opnam in de Groovemaster, de studio van Jackson Browne. Het is wellicht de onnavolgbare LA feel in een voortreffelijke muzikale wisselwerking en de instrumentale accenten die de onnavolgbare sound creëren. De inbreng van de bandleden is niet onbelangrijk, in de tweede helft duikt Grissom op als co-auteur van The Horses and the Hounds, een soliede countryrocker die titeltrack. Ft. Walton Wake- Up Call vermeldt drummer Hess en voormalige bassist Cornbread als co-auteurs bij een als rap gedebiteerd verhaal. Het met hulp van producer Hogarth tot stand gekomen Blackberry Winter vormt de bekroning van de hereniging en een bijzonder gepaste afsluiter van al dit fraais. De combinatie van zorgvuldig uitgewerkte verhalen met literair karakter van een muzikant die tot de absolute top van de actieve singer-songwritersgilde in Americanaland behoort, resulteert in na een lange stilte in een weergaloos werkstuk.