BETHLEHEM, Pa. — More than 35 years after his song "Painting by Numbers" captured the frustration of America's heartland and became an MTV video hit, singer James McMurtry still is a troubadour in the truest sense.
McMurtry said he spends most of his time on the road these days, playing shows such as the one he'll do at 7 p.m. next Sunday, June 21, in Musikfest Cafe at ArtsQuest Center.
“When that record from the tour stops dropping off, we need you guys [the media] to write about us or talk about us to get people into the shows. That’s really the only commercial value of a record anymore."Singer James McMurtry
“Well, that’s the only revenue stream right now," he said in a phone call from his home in Lockhart, Texas. "You can’t make it on royalties. Royalties for downloads and streams are nothing.
"You know, the days when you toured to support record sales, hoping to live off the record sales, are long gone. It’s the other way around now.”
Despite that dour outlook on the recording scene, McMurtry's current tour is supporting his latest disc, "The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy," released a year ago Wednesday.
“Well, I mean, what I was looking to do is keep my current career going,” he said of the disc, tongue only partially in cheek.
“When that record from the tour stops dropping off, we need you guys [the media] to write about us or talk about us to get people into the shows.
“That’s really the only commercial value of a record anymore."
Self-produced success
McMurtry may be largely correct, but his new disc has drawn critical acclaim for turning his examinations inward — looking at the complexities of life.
It also reunites McMurty with producer Don Dixon, who also had success with critical favorites R.E.M. and The Smithereens.
McMurtry started his recording career with the 1989 album "Too Long in the Wasteland," which included "Painting by Numbers."
"I’d used up everything I’d learned from Dixon and Mellencamp and everyone else I’d worked with."Singer James McMurtry
The disc, produced by iconic Heartland rocker John Mellencamp, won critical acclaim, but McMurtry seemed to hit his stride with his third album, 1995's "Where'd You Hide the Body?," produced by Dixon.
By his sixth album, 2002's "Saint Mary Of The Woods," McMurtry was producing his own records.
He especially had success with 2005's "Childish Things," which put him on Billboard's Country and Indie charts and was chosen the Americana Music Association's Album of the Year.
Its song "We Can't Make It Here" was chosen by music critic Robert Christgau as Best Song of the 2000s.
McMurtry's 2008 album "Just Us Kids" put him back on Billboard's overall Albums chart and got him nominated for the Americana Music Association's Album, Song and Artist of the Year.
But along the way, he said, "I felt like I had run out of tricks as a producer."
"I’d used up everything I’d learned from Dixon and Mellencamp and everyone else I’d worked with," McMurtry said. "So I started bringing in outside producers just to learn some new techniques and see what these guys know."
That was C.C. Adcock for 2015's "Complicated Game," which gave McMurtry his highest-charting album ever (Top 10 Indie chart and No. 4 on the Folk chart).
For 2021's "The Horses and The Hounds," it was Ross Hogarth, who was Mellencamp’s engineer and mixed McMurtry's first two albums, as well as "Saint Mary of the Woods."
"The Horses and The Hounds" made the Top 30 on the Country chart and No. 8 on the folk chart.
'A good fit'
After a five-year recording hiatus, McMurtry said, simply, that "It was time to make a record" again to help give a boost to his live performances.
"And I wanted to go to L.A. to make a record just for the experience of it," he said.
“I thought I would revisit Mr. Dixon’s homeroom for production ... I figured it’s time to find out what Dixon’s learned in the last 30 years.”
McMurtry said "it turned out to be a good fit."
"If Dixon’s in the control room and we finish a take and he comes in and start listening, if it’s a good one, he’ll say, ‘Sit right there, punch this one little spot, punch the ending and you got it.’"Singer James McMurtry
On the new disc, the singer said, Dixon "got along with the guys real well. We knocked it out fairly quick."
Part of that was because of Dixon's "genius is knowing when the good take is happening."
"So if I’m producing myself, I’ll go in there and do three takes, and I’ll have to come back and listen to see which one is good, ‘cause I can’t really tell as I’m playing.
“Well, if Dixon’s in the control room and we finish a take and he comes in and start listening, if it’s a good one, he’ll say, ‘Sit right there, punch this one little spot, punch the ending and you got it.’
“And that saves 15 minutes, because you got to listen to three takes of five minutes apiece, that’s 15 minutes out of your day in the studio, which is costly," he said with a laugh.
High-profile players
McMurtry also got high-profile players for "The Black Dog and The Wandering Boy."
Famed guitarist Charlie Sexton, bassist Bonnie Whitmore from the alt-country band The Mastersons, and chart-topping bluegrass singer Sarah Jarosz all appear on the disc.
“I guess I just hear them in my head."Singer James McMurtry, about why he chose the players he did for his new album
Texas Americana singer BettySoo, who sang on five of the disc's cuts and played on two others, will be McMurtry's opening act at Musikfest Cafe.
“I guess I just hear them in my head," McMurtry said of why he chose the players. "And, of course, I made this record in Austin [Texas]. So if you need a player in Austin, you just pick up the phone."
McMurtry said Sexton "plays that weird instrument — it’s like a 10-string fretless, metal-bodied, Turkish instrument called a cum-bus.
"And we used it on the ‘Horse and Hounds’ record a little bit, and I thought it would go well against that fair-toned guitar on [the new song] 'Sons of the Second Sons’ — called him to do that."
The album also includes a cover of included a cover of Kris Kristofferson’s "Broken Freedom Song," which McMurtry said he chose just after Kristofferson died in 2024.
"He was really my first songwriting hero," McMurtry said. "He was introduced to me as a songwriter when I was about 9 years old.
"I didn’t pay attention to where songs came from up to that point. I just wanted to be Johnny Cash — I didn’t care if he wrote ‘em or not.”
'Not as cynical as I was'
McMurtry said the album's title comes from hallucinations his father, famed Western novelist Larry McMurtry — he wrote "Lonesome Dove," "The Last Picture Show" and "Terms of Endearment" — experienced with the onset of Alzheimers.
“My stepmother asked me after Larry passed, ‘Did Larry ever talk to you about his hallucinations?’" McMurtry said.
"I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘He never talked about the black dog and the wandering boy?’ I said, ‘No, but I’m stealing that.’ Cause that’s an image that you can use for a song."
"He said, ‘Well, that’s not a hit record, but it’s a pretty cool song, we’ll go ahead and cut it.’"James McMurtry, recalling record producer John Mellencamp's initial reaction to the song "Painting By Numbers"
His stepmother responded, "If you got any sense, you wouldn’t use that," he said with a laugh.
Asked about his feelings about "Painting By Numbers" these days, McMurtry said the song came at the end of recording "Wasteland."
"We’d actually torn down — we were gonna move the drums out of there and everything," he said. "And John [Mellencamp] said, ‘Well, you know, we’re not done yet. We don’t have a hit on this record.’
“And he said, ‘Go write a hit’ and he gave me a carton of cigarettes. And so I came back a couple days later" with "Painting By Numbers."
"And he said, ‘Well, that’s not a hit record, but it’s a pretty cool song, we’ll go ahead and cut it.’ So then we put everything back in place.
"That’s why the drums are so compressed on that thing — cause Ross was not about to spend a day getting drum sounds back. He just put those mics in there — prepped them and go.”
But these years later, McMurtry said of the song's lyrics, “Yeah, I don’t really believe it anymore."
"I’m not as cynical as I was when I wrote the song,” he said.
JAMES MCMURTRY & THE MARTIAL LAW REVIEW, with special guest BettySoo, 7 p.m. June 21, Musikfest Cafe at ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem. Tickets: $34.25–$39.50, www.artsquest.org.
