JAMES MCMURTRY
''COMPLICATED GAME''
FEBRUARY 24 2015
54:47
1 Copper Canteen 04:35
2 You Got To Me 05:19
3 Ain't Got A Place 02:39
4 She Loves Me 02:57
5 How'm I Gonna Find You Now 04:00
6 These Things I've Come To Know 03:16
7 Deaver's Crossing 03:58
8 Carlisle's Haul 07:10
9 Forgotten Coast 03:30
10 South Dakota 04:58
11 Long Island Sound 06:43
12 Cutter 05:37
REVIEW/AMG
by Mark Deming
James McMurtry was an outstanding songwriter right out of the box, but learning the art of record-making took a while for him, and he was close to 20 years into his recording career when he cut 2008's Just Us Kids, his best and most effective album. If you'd imagine that McMurtry would use Just Us Kids as a template for his next studio album, you'd be selling the man short; 2015's Complicated Game is a similarly superb showcase for McMurtry's songwriting, but the feel and the themes of the album are decidedly different, and it demonstrates the man has more than one card up his sleeve. McMurtry brought in modern-day swamp rocker C.C. Adcock to co-produce Complicated Game with Mike Napolitano, and while the album doesn't reflect most of Adcock's sonic hallmarks, the work has a looser and more casual feel than Just Us Kids, with a back-porch immediacy in the performances and a sound that's uncluttered and accurate but just the slightest bit overheard, which meshes well with the tenor of McMurtry's songs. Small-p politics and the malaise of the George W. Bush years informed most of the tunes on Just Us Kids, but Complicated Game deals more in character studies, with McMurtry singing of people trying to make sense of life on America's fringes rather than dwelling on the larger forces that brought them there, though it's clear that the characters in "Carlisle's Haul" and "South Dakota" can't help but think they live in places that aren't what they used to be. But the greatest strength of Just Us Kids is also what makes Complicated Game another winner -- McMurtry is one of the best American songwriters in the game, inhabiting the lives of the people he writes about with an unaffected sincerity (the fact the very Texan McMurtry can sing convincingly from the point of view of a New England fisherman or a Long Island working stiff says a lot), and filling his lyrics with telling details that are sometimes witty, sometimes affecting, and always brilliantly observed. And McMurtry has learned the art of effortlessly selling his songs, both in terms of his vocals and his interplay with the studio band. The difference between the guy who made 1989's Too Long in the Wasteland and the man who cut Complicated Game is the more mature McMurtry has figured out how to deliver the fine songs he writes and get their qualities on tape, and Complicated Game confirms he's not only remembered this valuable lesson, he's finding new ways to refine what he knows, and this album is another triumph for one of America's most rewarding tunesmiths.
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
by Steve Huey
Texas singer/songwriter James McMurtry, known for his hard-edged character sketches, comes from a literary family; his father, novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry, gave James his first guitar at age seven, and his mother, an English professor, taught him how to play it. McMurtry began performing his own songs while a student at the University of Arizona and continued to do so after returning home and taking a job as a bartender. When it transpired that a film script McMurtry's father had written was being directed by John Mellencamp, who was also its star, McMurtry's demo tape was passed along, and Mellencamp was duly impressed, serving as co-producer on McMurtry's 1989 debut album, Too Long in the Wasteland, which landed McMurtry a deal with Columbia Records. McMurtry also appeared on the soundtrack of Mellencamp's film, Falling from Grace, working with Mellencamp, John Prine, Joe Ely, and Dwight Yoakam in a one-off supergroup called the Buzzin' Cousins.
McMurtry recorded two more albums for Columbia, 1992's Candyland and 1995's Where'd You Hide the Body, before he and the label parted ways. McMurtry found a more comfortable home in the independent label community; he struck a deal with the respected roots music label Sugar Hill Records, and released his debut for the label, It Had to Happen, in 1997. Walk Between the Raindrops followed in 1998, and 2002 saw the release of Saint Mary of the Woods. McMurtry signed with the Texas-based Compadre label the following year, releasing Live in Aught-Three in 2004 and Childish Things in 2005, the latter featuring McMurtry's striking protest song "We Can't Make It Here," which longtime Village Voice music critic Robert Christgau declared was the best song of the 2000s. Just Us Kids appeared in 2008 on Lightning Rod Records, with another concert album, Live in Europe, arriving in 2009. It wasn't until 2015 that McMurtry -- who tours frequently and has a weekly residency at Austin's Continental Club when he's not on the road -- finally completed a new solo album, Complicated Game, which was produced by C.C. Adcock and Mike Napolitano.
OFFICIAL SITE
TO THE TOP
2 You Got To Me 05:19
3 Ain't Got A Place 02:39
4 She Loves Me 02:57
5 How'm I Gonna Find You Now 04:00
6 These Things I've Come To Know 03:16
7 Deaver's Crossing 03:58
8 Carlisle's Haul 07:10
9 Forgotten Coast 03:30
10 South Dakota 04:58
11 Long Island Sound 06:43
12 Cutter 05:37
REVIEW/AMG
by Mark Deming
James McMurtry was an outstanding songwriter right out of the box, but learning the art of record-making took a while for him, and he was close to 20 years into his recording career when he cut 2008's Just Us Kids, his best and most effective album. If you'd imagine that McMurtry would use Just Us Kids as a template for his next studio album, you'd be selling the man short; 2015's Complicated Game is a similarly superb showcase for McMurtry's songwriting, but the feel and the themes of the album are decidedly different, and it demonstrates the man has more than one card up his sleeve. McMurtry brought in modern-day swamp rocker C.C. Adcock to co-produce Complicated Game with Mike Napolitano, and while the album doesn't reflect most of Adcock's sonic hallmarks, the work has a looser and more casual feel than Just Us Kids, with a back-porch immediacy in the performances and a sound that's uncluttered and accurate but just the slightest bit overheard, which meshes well with the tenor of McMurtry's songs. Small-p politics and the malaise of the George W. Bush years informed most of the tunes on Just Us Kids, but Complicated Game deals more in character studies, with McMurtry singing of people trying to make sense of life on America's fringes rather than dwelling on the larger forces that brought them there, though it's clear that the characters in "Carlisle's Haul" and "South Dakota" can't help but think they live in places that aren't what they used to be. But the greatest strength of Just Us Kids is also what makes Complicated Game another winner -- McMurtry is one of the best American songwriters in the game, inhabiting the lives of the people he writes about with an unaffected sincerity (the fact the very Texan McMurtry can sing convincingly from the point of view of a New England fisherman or a Long Island working stiff says a lot), and filling his lyrics with telling details that are sometimes witty, sometimes affecting, and always brilliantly observed. And McMurtry has learned the art of effortlessly selling his songs, both in terms of his vocals and his interplay with the studio band. The difference between the guy who made 1989's Too Long in the Wasteland and the man who cut Complicated Game is the more mature McMurtry has figured out how to deliver the fine songs he writes and get their qualities on tape, and Complicated Game confirms he's not only remembered this valuable lesson, he's finding new ways to refine what he knows, and this album is another triumph for one of America's most rewarding tunesmiths.
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
by Steve Huey
Texas singer/songwriter James McMurtry, known for his hard-edged character sketches, comes from a literary family; his father, novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry, gave James his first guitar at age seven, and his mother, an English professor, taught him how to play it. McMurtry began performing his own songs while a student at the University of Arizona and continued to do so after returning home and taking a job as a bartender. When it transpired that a film script McMurtry's father had written was being directed by John Mellencamp, who was also its star, McMurtry's demo tape was passed along, and Mellencamp was duly impressed, serving as co-producer on McMurtry's 1989 debut album, Too Long in the Wasteland, which landed McMurtry a deal with Columbia Records. McMurtry also appeared on the soundtrack of Mellencamp's film, Falling from Grace, working with Mellencamp, John Prine, Joe Ely, and Dwight Yoakam in a one-off supergroup called the Buzzin' Cousins.
McMurtry recorded two more albums for Columbia, 1992's Candyland and 1995's Where'd You Hide the Body, before he and the label parted ways. McMurtry found a more comfortable home in the independent label community; he struck a deal with the respected roots music label Sugar Hill Records, and released his debut for the label, It Had to Happen, in 1997. Walk Between the Raindrops followed in 1998, and 2002 saw the release of Saint Mary of the Woods. McMurtry signed with the Texas-based Compadre label the following year, releasing Live in Aught-Three in 2004 and Childish Things in 2005, the latter featuring McMurtry's striking protest song "We Can't Make It Here," which longtime Village Voice music critic Robert Christgau declared was the best song of the 2000s. Just Us Kids appeared in 2008 on Lightning Rod Records, with another concert album, Live in Europe, arriving in 2009. It wasn't until 2015 that McMurtry -- who tours frequently and has a weekly residency at Austin's Continental Club when he's not on the road -- finally completed a new solo album, Complicated Game, which was produced by C.C. Adcock and Mike Napolitano.
OFFICIAL SITE
TO THE TOP