Singer McMurtry plays Complicated Game in LR

Texas singer-songwriter James McMurtry is about as honest and forthright as they come, in what he sings about and the way he approaches his touring. He's on the road now, promoting his latest album, Complicated Game, released in February 2015, after a six-year break from the studio.

As to why he took such a long hiatus, after previously releasing 11 albums between 1989 and 2009, McMurtry is as blunt as some of his political songs.

"My tour draw wasn't falling off," he explains, referring to his ability to pack venues with his fans. "Now we make records to promote our tour dates. We used to tour in order to sell records and our last studio album, Just Us Kids, had held up for quite a while, so I didn't want to take off a bunch of time to go in the studio."

With Complicated Game, McMurtry took more of a turn to relationship songs, rather than political topics, for which he became known. The current album contains the songs "These Things I've Come to Know" and "You Got to Me," but also has songs about troubled scenarios in "Copper Canteen," "South Dakota" and "Deaver's Crossing."

With 2016 a presidential election year, chances are McMurtry may yet have something to say about the decision awaiting his fellow Americans, based on some of his past songwriting, such as "Cheney's Toy," about former President George W. Bush, and "We Can't Make It Here," his best-known narrative song about the plight of the working class and the Iraq War during the Bush years.

"Maybe a song will come out of the current situation," he says. "So far, I haven't been able to get my head around it. Ever since the bombing in Oklahoma City, there's been a lot more anger than anyone could have realized, and that was before 9/11, and it wasn't even foreigners."

One puzzling aspect of the nation's current political era, he said, was Bernie Sanders' campaign apparently having no interest in McMurtry's widely hailed protest anthem, "We Can't Make It Here."

"I was kind of disappointed about that, as he had asked to use it back in 2012 when he ran for re-election to the Senate from Vermont," McMurtry muses. "And I was happy to allow him to use it. I guess he just forgot about me."

Another McMurtry song, "Choctaw Bingo," looks at the strange dynamics of some American families in the heartland and the meth epidemic of modern times. Robert Earl Keen recorded McMurtry's song "Levelland," about the struggle of living west of Lubbock, Texas, in "flyover country."

McMurtry's band consists of three musicians who have been with him for many years, in band time. The bass player, Cornbread, is the newest with "only" four years in the group. Percussionist Daren Hess and lead guitarist Tim Holt have some 15 years of road work with McMurtry.

One of McMurtry's favorite tour stops is Bangor, Maine, thanks to novelist Stephen King, who is a major fan of the musician.

"He owns a 'classic rock' radio station there and he got me on the air," McMurtry says. 'They don't care if your songs are nine minutes long. And there are plenty of folks hurting there, with some 30,000 jobs lost there to outsourcing in the last decade."

McMurtry knows he has built a devoted fan base in central Arkansas, after many a stop in these parts since he began his career. Back in the 1980s, he was known as the son of novelist Larry McMurtry (The Last Picture Show, Hud, Lonesome Dove). Now it's just as likely that the father is known for his son's impressive catalog of songwriting. (And now the third generation of McMurtrys, Curtis, has also become a singer-songwriter; he put out a 2014 CD, Respectable Enemy, and has performed with his father.)

Little Rock singer-songwriter Kevin Kerby, who performs as a solo act and with his band, Mulehead, will open the show.

Weekend on 05/05/2016