James McMurtry
From Fort Worth
Popularity
James McMurtry has one upcoming show in the Netherlands: on October 18, 2026 at De Oosterpoort, Groningen.
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About
James McMurtry writes songs that feel like short stories about people the rest of the country tends to forget. His working class anthem "We Can't Make It Here", from the 2005 album Childish Things, took direct aim at the Iraq War, corporate America, and the Bush administration, and critic Robert Christgau called it the best song of the entire decade. That album won both song and album of the year at the Americana Music Awards, cementing McMurtry as one of the sharpest political voices in the genre. His 2021 release The Horses and the Hounds, recorded at Jackson Browne's Santa Monica studio and produced by Russ Hogarth, scored an 81 on Metacritic and earned an Americana Music Award nomination for lead track "Canola Fields". Pitchfork praised McMurtry for sounding "more engaged, more focused, and more generous to his hard luck characters" than ever. His earlier breakthrough came thanks to John Mellencamp, who co produced McMurtry's debut Too Long in the Wasteland back in 1989 after receiving a demo tape.
