Blurt Band O’ The Week: James McMurtry

Our latest pick in the series: Lone Star tunesmith and political rabble-rouser James McMurtry.

By Fred Mills

James McMurtry is our Band O' The Week, the fifth selection in our increasingly popular and prestigious series. Okay, so technically he's ARTIST of the week. Work with us here. Previous artists we picked - the Clean, Os Mutantes, Avett Brothers, Panther - have all gained massive fame and reaped amazing riches in the BLURT afterglow, natch, and McMurtry's been glowing with us along. You knew, for example, that he's a BLURT blogger, right? If not, check out his political and pop-culture screeds at "Wasteland Bait & Tackle"...

So anyway, JM's got a new album out this week, Live in Europe, a combined CD/DVD release. As our reviewer put things, "It's another chance to notice how in and around the anger about macroscopic events, McMurtry is capable of extraordinary nuance in describing the lives of ordinary people on a microscopic level... Apart from refocusing songs away from the glare of diatribes against Dick Cheney, Live in Europe offers the distinctive pleasures of a typical James McMurtry show, with his thousand and one guitars of perfect tone, and that impeccable rhythm section of bassist Ronnie Johnson and drummer Darren Hess."

McMurtry also debuted a new video at BLURT this week, "You'd a Thought (Leonard Cohen Must Die)". It's from the new album of course, and you can check it out in our video kiosk.

And check back each Friday for the latest BLURT Band O' The Week.