Review – James McMurtry’s “The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy”
Alt-Country (#564) on the Country DDS.
James McMurtry is such a master class songwriter and this truth has become so self-evident, you might even hear other songwriters referred to as the “James McMurtry” of their era or region. But James McMurtry is the James McMurtry of James McMurtry’s. He ain’t dead or hung up the guitar just yet. And until he does, and for as long as he continues to release albums, it remains his era. So you best stop down and take a listen, son.
A James McMurtry song almost always starts with character and setting, just like the works of his pops, legendary Texas novelist Larry McMurtry. You’ve got to believe that at the age of 63 and nearly four decades into his career, James is probably done with the comparisons. But it’s an apt one nonetheless, whether the younger McMurtry is making fiction, or singing about his own life like in the new song “Sailing Away” that makes references to opening for Jason Isbell, and finds James wondering openly if trying to remain a relevant musician is even worth it anymore.
The results of McMurtry’s new album The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy would argue that it definitely is. It’s not just the way he can awaken character and setting in the mind’s eye, and in a much greater efficiency than some long-winded novel. It’s the clever little references he drops in each song, like trying to rip the door handle off your vehicle whenever you’ve locked the keys inside—something we’ve all experienced. Or maybe it’s the reference to a Weird Al Yankovic parody—something that’s probably a little more obscure.
But it’s through all of these lyrical mechanisms that McMurtry explores the complexities of human life, and the dilemmas it often creates for itself. Boy the timing couldn’t be better to unveil a song about post 9/11 hysteria and the lessons we didn’t learn from it like McMurtry does with “Annie.” Unafraid to get political, but uninterested in doing so in a simple way that misunderstands the nuance of an issue, McMurtry makes you think, even if you might not agree.
In a misunderstood interpretation, some might take the song “Sons of the Second Sons” as a scathing rebuke of the Southern identity as opposed to an exploration into the generational architecture behind endemic poverty and the often fruitless search for leadership out of it. McMurtry’s has a gift for stimulating the brain and broadening perspectives by allowing the audience to see life through someone else’s eyes.
Sometimes the lessons of a James McMurtry song to be unraveled are multiple and intertwined. “Pinocchio in Vegas” might initially seem like a humorous hypothetical about the post Disney life of a beloved character. But in truth it’s all about how we often lose precious information about our lives in the passing of our parents. This is the kind of multi-layered songwriting that has put McMurtry at the pinnacle of the craft according to many of his peers.
The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy is a distinctly songwriter-based old school alt-country album with some roots inflections, but with a lot of rock influences as well. It was produced by Don Dixon who also produced McMurtry’s third album Where’d You Hide the Body? from 1995. Appearances include Sarah Jarosz, Charlie Sexton, Bonnie Whitmore, and Bukka Allen. McMurtry’s backing band of BettySoo on accordion & backing vocals, Cornbread on bass, Tim Holt on guitar, and Daren Hess on drums are also on the album.
While growing up, counterculture icon Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters would pay visits to the McMurtry house. Apparently it was documented in Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Even more crazy, at one point Kesey sketched a picture of a young James McMurtry. It became the cover for the new album. Ken’s widow Faye ended up marrying Larry McMurtry later in life. The title track is inspired by McMurtry’s father’s visions of a black dog and a wandering boy that he would see as he suffered from dementia.
Someday, and hopefully well into the future, it will be relevant to broach the subject of who the James McMurtry of the era is. But for now, we still have the actual James McMurtry here with us in the flesh. And as long as he continues to release albums like The Black Dog, it’s his era.
8.3/10
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Purchase/stream The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy
June 24, 2025 @ 7:56 am
He has the best bass player in all of country in my humble opinion.
Good review – he just keeps cranking out tune after tune that anyone else would die to have written. I also love the Kristofferson nod on this from my favorite album of his Spooky Lady Sideshow.
June 24, 2025 @ 8:04 am
His Seattle show last week was one of the best I’ve ever seen. Great album.
June 24, 2025 @ 1:36 pm
Was also at this show. I count my lucky stars that I can still see a genius like McMurtry in a 350-person venue.
June 25, 2025 @ 9:44 am
Saw in Portland the night before. He was a bucket lister for me and did not disappoint. “Genius” is not an understatement. He’s as cerebral as Isbell and as character/setting driven as Felker…..maybe more so than both and should be counted amongst the Titans of song writing across all genres.
June 24, 2025 @ 9:36 am
I’m a broken record on the subject, but McMurtry’s ability to maintain this level of creative output through his mid 50s and beyond (Complicated Game, Horses and Hounds, Wondering Boy) is such an insane outlier.
“South Texas Lawman”, “Pinocchio”, and “Sailing Away” are instant JMcM classics.
He’s playing within an hour of me on a Friday in September. I wouldn’t dare miss it.
June 24, 2025 @ 10:45 am
He stays true to himself, that’s also worth something today.
Too many of his contemporaries keeps chasing the current trends.
June 24, 2025 @ 12:27 pm
Agree with everyone here. His songs are true stories, sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, always thought provoking. Most songwriters would love a 10th of his story telling ability. His songs always grab my attention and make me pay attention to lyrics first, music second- and the band has been killing it these last few records (decades).
July 16, 2025 @ 8:00 am
Dixon told me he thinks it’s the best record JMc has ever done. Don is incredibly proud of it, which speaks volumes.
June 24, 2025 @ 1:19 pm
Excited to dig deeper into this one—I like the early returns.
Still think “Canola Fields” is a top 10ish song of the past 10 years.
June 25, 2025 @ 10:54 am
Agree completely
June 24, 2025 @ 1:34 pm
My instant favorite record of the year, even as a Turnpike diehard. South Texas Lawman is up there for my Song of the Year next to Yellow Rose and Heaven Passing Through.
June 24, 2025 @ 5:04 pm
Captain Call born in the wrong century.
June 24, 2025 @ 5:03 pm
It only took 24 years to get a good 9/11 song. I don’t dislike GWB, but this tune transcends politics imo.
June 29, 2025 @ 12:18 pm
For me, it took 12: Audra McDonald’s “I’ll Be Here”. It’s not country, but neither is McMurtry, at least not to my ears. Rock or folk-rock would be a better description of his music. I’m not suggesting SCM shouldn’t be reviewing his music; it’s definitely close enough to country to be enjoyed by fans of the genre.
I had to revisit two of his excellent past efforts: 2008’s Kids Like Us and the vintage Too Long in the Wasteland.
June 24, 2025 @ 7:24 pm
His recent show in Chicago was, as usual, revelatory. I know I’ve seen James solo and with a band at least ten times. He’s a fabulous guitarist along with his penetrating lyrics, dark humor and voice of reason and outrage among these increasingly turbulent times. A master whose prime has encompassed all these decades.
June 24, 2025 @ 9:47 pm
He is the best currently working. I read “Sons of the Second Sons” more as a description of America as a whole than strictly the South. The genocide to which he refers could easily be that ot Native Americans.
June 24, 2025 @ 10:28 pm
I agree with that assessment. I was just a little worried some would hear the references to “Southern Fried” and “Stars & Bars” that they might make the wrong assessment of the song. It is a propulsive song for sure, but I think less about passing judgement, and more about how the problems of American society are endemic.
June 25, 2025 @ 1:15 pm
Stars and Bars, Southern fried, double wide, genocide…
Sh*t boy howdy, Those are some ten dollar words there.
Not at all cliche.
June 25, 2025 @ 10:34 am
I saw McMurtry with Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Dave Alvin in Santa Fe, NM, earlier this month. When he played Sons of the Second Sons, the audience seemed stunned but then stood and cheered. It was one of those transcendent live-music moments. After the song, Alvin growled, “James, you don’t suck.” His songs are literature, plain and simple, though the lyrics are neither. Thank you for reviewing this fine work. I agree with many others that we are lucky to still have this guy producing high-class art, true art.
June 25, 2025 @ 1:31 pm
Thanks for such a sensitive and perceptive review. Your comment that McMurtry” “has a gift for stimulating the brain and broadening perspectives by allowing the audience to see life through someone else’s eyes” reminds me of two of my favorite songs of his, “Song for a Deckhand’s Daughter” from Too Long in the Wasteland and “Where’s Johnny?” from Candyland. Very few songwriters can create characters like he does and make you care about them like he does.
June 25, 2025 @ 4:34 pm
Would love to trade your top 20 tunes of all time with mine because your McMurtry selections are quite nuanced.
June 25, 2025 @ 2:47 pm
“Sons of Second Sons” is a terrible song. The title/premise is slightly clever–it’s a poetic way to describe Americans.
But there’s no depth or complexity to it at all. If McMurtry has complex feelings about this country, he fails to convey them, or I’m completely missing them. Compare Nikki Lane’s lyrics about her father in “Woodruff City Limit”: She obviously has very complex feelings about a complex man, but you can’t deny that she loved him.
Compare:
“Born under a bad sign in ’58
Daredevil boy patched up with a metal plate
Kept him alive but it couldn’t keep him straight
He was a good man with a dark side and a cruel hand.”
“And for a while we did okay
Or lookin’ back it seems that way
Tried to put our bеst foot down
We left tracks in the lunar dust
Did away with the meaner stuff
All could ride at the front of the bus now
Didn’t need no Jim Crow car
And we thought we’d come so far”
Lane in four lines can convey the origin story of a man with a lot of problems and make you sympathize with an unsympathetic character.
McMurtry in eight lines can come up with… landing on the moon and ending Jim Crow? This is the best thing he has to say about Americans in the whole song. These are maybe reasons to like a country, but not to love one.
And comparing Trump to Caesar? Well, he made it past 1933 in the history book, but really? This is the greatest songwriter of his generation?
I was really looking forward to this album, but this song ruined the whole album for me. I’m coming from the opposite team from McMurtry, but I like to think I’m open to something thought-provoking from the other side. This was just “Orange Man’s Voters Bad” set to music, and that’s a tune I’ve heard very loudly from 7/8ths of every media, academic and cultural outfit for 10 years now.
“Sons of Second Sons” isn’t a love song, it’s a breakup song.
June 25, 2025 @ 4:18 pm
Hey John,
Let me open by saying, I’m on the other team from you. And with that, I can empathize with your frustration about the media painting “Orange Man’s Voters Bad” time and time again.
Now all that said, I don’t think that’s what this song is getting at. I think this one is coming for both our sides. And for that, I appreciate it all the more.
The arc of the song, to my reading, seems to go:
Founding of America – poor Europeans came here and made a country. There’s some empathy to their plight, but even though they didn’t have much, they still committed a “genocide” against the native americans.
Americas accomplishments – We landed on the moon and ended Jim crow and “for a while we did okay, or at least it seemed that way” because, while we accomplished these things, we were still bombing Vietnam.
America Today – We don’t see eye to eye anymore. We’re “feeling stressed” and the only path forward most of us seem to have come up with is “Eff You, I’ll get mine.” because the systems that were supposed to protect us have been left to rot, while we attack other countries (I think it’s safe to say this song was written and recorded long before the current Iran thing, so even if me and you disagree on that, I’m sure we probably agree that the 20 year Iraq war was a waste.)
And the changing lyrics from chorus to chorus, I think those are about all of us. “looking for a caesar” could just as easily be about the left as it is about the right. I think it’s more James saying “None of us have shit anymore, so we’ll cling to whatever we can get.” whether that’s our southern fried food, our guns, our savior, or our caesar.
We’re not in this together anymore, we’re all out for our own best interests, and I think he’s saying, maybe we always have been.
June 25, 2025 @ 5:06 pm
Well said.
June 26, 2025 @ 10:32 am
Grant,
I appreciate the thoughtful engagement.
I don’t desire an Internet slap-fight here, but let me explain more about why it doesn’t seem to me that McMurtry has called in any artillery strikes on his own Team Blue positions.
“So let’s fly those stripes and stars” – Flying the American flag codes Team Red, even though some Team Blue people do fly it proudly.
“Polishin’ up their guns” – Guns code Team Red, even though I’m well aware that some Team Blue people are gun people including McMurtry himself.
“Righteous and justified” – This certainly COULD be describing Team Blue people in a different context, but coming right after the “guns” line, it’s obviously a dig at Team Red.
“Eatin’ that southern fried” – This codes Team Red to me.
The line you call out as implicating Team Blue, “Nowadays we’re feelin’ stressed” is followed immediately by, “Tellin’ each other have a blessed day.” Again, this pretty majorly implies Team Red.
“All camoed up and standing tall” – Again, I’m well aware that hunting and the military include lots of Team Blue people, but those activities code Team Red big-time.
“Buildin’ bombs and border walls” – Come on.
“As all collective conscience falls away” – Do you think this is implicating Team Blue of any of their misdeeds? Of course it isn’t. It is straightforwardly stating that bombs and border walls are wrong and Team Red should be ashamed of themselves.
“And they wave those stars and bars” – This is basically a stereotype of Team Red.
“Payin’ on double-wides” – This is obviously talking about Team Red. “Trump-voting trailer trash” is another stereotype.
To me, the comparison between the present–“Buildin’ bombs and border walls”–and the past–“Products of genocide”–is obviously that McMurtry is condemning our fathers for being, basically, Trump voters. Trump voters are responsible for the genocides past and present.
What one cultural thing in the song codes as negative and pertains to Team Blue? I’m well aware that there are Team Blue people who own guns, hunt, bless others, eat fried food, live in double-wides and want a strong national defense including a border wall. But if someone tells you he is/does/supports all of these things, whom would you assume he voted for in November?
What one thing in this song shows the least bit of fondness or tenderness towards America? If I tell you that my dad was CEO of General Motors (comparing my father’s achievements to America’s achievements like the moon landing), well, maybe that’s a reason to be PROUD of my dad, but not a reason to love him.
These last two paragraphs are serious questions, btw–what am I missing here?
July 3, 2025 @ 12:50 pm
Can’t wait for your insightful review of Dylan’s “Only a Pawn”
June 25, 2025 @ 7:41 pm
South Texas Lawman is the HIT for me
June 26, 2025 @ 7:38 am
James McMurtry’s famous novelist father Larry wrote the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Here is James in drag, making a spectacle of himself in Nashville singing a weird and menacing song called Red Dress. His performance was in protest of a bill in Tennessee that protected minors from being exposed to adult cabaret performances.
Any guesses as to what the lyrics to Red Dress mean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0IRXUPMQM
June 26, 2025 @ 7:49 am
And yet, none of this has anything to do with this album whatsoever.
The thing about that Tennessee bill is that one side was screaming that it banned ALL drag (which it didn’t), while the other side was screaming that anyone who participated in drag whatsoever was attempting to groom kids (which they don’t). It truly was a great test case over the hysteria that persists around political issues to the point where years later, it can be brought up in an album review where it has nothing to do with anything.
Nobody is going to take it as a news flash that McMurtry’s politics lean left. He’s been at this for nearly 40 years.
June 26, 2025 @ 8:39 am
James was born in Texas but grew up around Washington D.C. where from eight years old he attended an expensive, private, all-male boarding school, Woodbury Forest School.
Far from being some kind of observant country bumpkin with a notable talent for gritty lyrics, it is clear that James is a privileged member of of the ruling class.
His fellow alumnus, Beto O’ Rourke also performed in drag as a “political statement.”
One wonders what went on in that all-boys school, and did it contribute to James McMurtry’s songwriting talent?
Why did a Texas rancher who wrote Western novels choose to run a bookstore in Georgetown while sending his son to an elite boarding school in the area?
James McMurtry is clearly not a typical country musician. Did his famous father mentor him in colorful narrative, or did he learn creative writing in school.
What is the real meaning behind the song Sons of Second Sons?
June 26, 2025 @ 9:47 am
Hank 33,
You’re presenting biographical information that is public knowledge about a guy who’s been at it for 40 years as if you’re presenting revelations. This is no different than when someone hectors me about the “banjo being a Black instrument.” All that tells me is they didn’t know this until 15 minutes ago, when to most folks in country, this has been common knowledge for decades.
“observant country bumpkin with a notable talent for gritty lyrics…” Those are your words, not mine. My words were presenting the background information that Larry McMurtry was his father, and Ken Kesey would visit the home when he was growing up. That doesn’t sound like I’m presenting a country bumpkin.
Basically you’re saying, “This person comes from a different segment of society from me. So I don’t like him.” That’s kind of what “Sons of the Second Sons” is about. As a second son who was told from an early age I would never go to college because there was only enough money to send my older brother, I can relate to the sentiments of the song. Again, as I said in the review, I understand if it comes across as judgemental and triggering to some people. And I’m sorry if you don’t like McMurtry’s bio. I myself prefer to focus on the music.
June 26, 2025 @ 1:39 pm
James might do well to sing more songs about playing la crosse and hobnobbing with senator’s sons in the Beltway.
It would be more authentic given his background.
June 27, 2025 @ 5:43 pm
Hank, i grew up in the Choctaw Nation. I’ve never heard a better critique of rural Eastern Oklahoma than Choctaw Bingo.
There’s room for the Bird Hunters and Choctaw Bingo in country music. No surprise, Felker said the Bird Hunters (than romanticizes the same region) said the song was heavily influenced by James McMurtry.
On the other hand, I know nothing about hurricane season on the coast, but James McMurtry’s Hurricane Party sure sounds convincing to me. He may not be the real deal Cajun, but I’ve never heard or read prose that made it so easy to visualize a chain smoking alcoholic riding out the storm better than that song.
And I don’t care for the Second Songs either, perhaps for some similar reasons as you. But it doesn’t take away from McMurtry’s entire body of work.
June 28, 2025 @ 4:12 pm
Indianola,
Choctaw Nation must not be so bad if a young Choctaw songwriter like Samantha Crain can make good, and bring forth the essential redemptive quality in her work that one finds McMurtry’s politically motivated caricatures lacking.
July 25, 2025 @ 11:31 pm
Why does his affluent upbringing take away whatsoever from the songwriting? It stands on its own merits for its story telling, imagery and poetry. Most of the characters in his story songs are fictional, so what does it matter about where he went to school? Is JRR token unqualified to write about middle earth because he grew up in England?
June 26, 2025 @ 12:36 pm
Thank you again, Saving Country Music for introducing me to this artist. Horses and the Hounds will always be a go to. This one is also fantastic.
Yes, it’s ridiculous to see our nation so divided by politics…
Both sides need a swift kick to the forehead…
Political parties and religion won’t save us…but music and compassion just might…
July 1, 2025 @ 11:47 am
I got to hear James play in Key West at the Mile 0 Festival earlier this year.
He’s a phenom.
July 2, 2025 @ 6:51 am
Who hurt you? Was it the imaginary drag queen groomers? Just because you do not agree with James’s politics does not mean you can negate the fact, he’s one of the best songwriters to ever walk this earth. People like you are laughable; you try to find reasons to take away from other people’s talents over politicians that do not give a crap about you. How many other songwriters live rent free in your head? Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson or Merle Haggard ring a bell? They all leaned left. I’m a betting man myself and I’d bet 95 percent of people would agree that James is a beast of a songwriter. I’m sure people will be talking about your art and all your thoughtful contributions to world when all is said and done, but the truth is, you will just be forgotten as Hank 33.