With The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy, Texas-born James McMurtry bursts back onto the scene four years since his last album with a voice reminiscent of the great Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. This new chapter features the likes of Sarah Jarosz, Charlie Sexton, Bonnie Whitmore and Bukka Allen and is brought to musical life by McMurtry’s faithful backing band comprised of BettySoo on accordion and backing vocals, Cornbread on bass, Tim Holt on guitar, and Daren Hess on drums.
McMurtry is a masterful storyteller, drawing inspiration for this album from his family’s – and indeed his country’s – past. Even before you hit play on the first track, you are invited into the singer’s memories via the pencil sketch on the front of the album, the boy drawn by Ken Kesey of The Merry Pranksters during a visit to McMurtry’s family home.
The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy is a scrapbook of life, offering us glimpses of various characters on a whistlestop tour of humanity throughout history. Each track tells a different tale.
The boy and black dog on the cover are based on two favourite figures from hallucinations the singer’s father had whilst suffering from dementia, a bluesey harmonica lilting in and out of the lyrics of the title track lending the song an appropriately intense flavour.
‘Laredo’ is a cover of the song by Jon Dee Graham about a weekend opioid trip. It comes rolling in hard with a driving kit and electric guitar line, the story built on small details like a stain in the trunk of a car and fireflies in the air. ‘South Texas Lawman’ laments the trials of growing older, the former officer struggling to come to terms with change on a personal and societal level.
In ‘The Color Of Night’, the singer’s “Hollywood girl” weaves beautifully in and out of his nocturnal contemplations on his life choices, struggles, and dreams. We see a similar introspection in ‘Sailing Away’, in which a man plagued by burnout and a broken relationship longs for freedom.
‘Pinocchio In Vegas’ strikes up brightly with a ‘Norwegian Wood’-esque sound, introducing us to a perpetual gambler hardened by the tough hand life has dealt him drowning his sorrows in the game, the bright guitar paired with a melancholy undertone.
‘Back to Coeur D’Alene’ reflects on the long arduous road to fame, the repetition in the chorus (“Gotta get known”) as relentless as the grind of constantly trying again, taking any small opportunity, and moving past rejections.
Changing tack, ‘Annie’ sets the small scale of an individual’s (Annie’s) everyday life against the backdrop of 9/11 and war, questioning how something so ordinary can go on when time has stopped; and ‘Sons Of The Second Sons’ revolves around the American Civil War and slavery (the “Stars and Bars” being the flags of the Confederate States of America), national pride increasingly marred by creeping doubt and fading conviction as the track goes on.
We close with a cover of Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Broken Freedom Song’, a snapshot of different lives on an album full of snapshots: a solider struggling with PTSD, a single mother abandoned by her partner, even Jesus makes an appearance, thrust into a modern-day urban jungle.
There is a spontaneous feel to The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy, almost as though McMurtry is jotting down ideas and elaborating on each story as the songs progress. In his own words, “You follow the words where they lead. If you can get a character, maybe you can get a story. If you can set it to a verse-chorus structure, maybe you can get a song.” And it’s a real treat.