James McMurtry didn’t need help with his talent, or with his
\nheritage. His hard-edged musical character sketches come as a
\ndirect legacy of his father, novelist Larry McMurtry. However, like
\nmost musicians, he needed a break; he got it when his father wrote
\na script for a movie starring and directed by John Mellencamp,
\nFalling From Grace<\/i>. John met James, John heard James play,
\nand the rest is history. The direct result was his 1989 debut CD,
\nToo Long In The Wasteland<\/i>.<\/p>\n
McMurtry is, plain and simple, brilliant on this CD. Unlike most
\ndebut CDs, right out of the gate he tells you what he wants to say,
\nwith no bull and no subterfuge. McMurtry can say more in five words
\nthan most artists can say in an album, a talent he shares with only
\na few other artists (Harry Chapin, Bruce Springsteen, and
\nMellencamp himself come to mind).<\/p>\n
The musicianship on
\nToo Long<\/i> is excellent; not surprising, since most of the
\nartists (including drummer Kenny Aronoff and guitarists David
\nGrissom and Larry Crane) had played together as Mellencamp’s
\nbacking band. But this isn’t a CD full of ringers; the accent is on
\nMcMurtry’s laconic, dry, and expressive vocals and chiming acoustic
\nguitar. The production and engineering is superior, keeping it
\nrecording clean and uncluttered.<\/p>\n
Then, then there are the songs. McMurtry writes songs like some
\npeople throw daggers; each one is razor sharp, forceful, and nails
\nits target cleanly. From the opening lines of “Painting By Numbers”
\n(“‘Cause you’re painting by numbers \/\/ connecting the dots \/\/ they
\ndon’t have to tell you \/\/ you don’t call the shots \/\/ you jump when
\nthey say jump \/\/ and you don’t ask how high \/\/ cause painting by
\nnumbers, they know you’ll get by\u2026”) McMurtry paints
\nunflinching portraits of moments caught in time, people caught in
\ncircumstance, and shattered dreams.<\/p>\n
Highlights include the damning indictment of “Terry”; the lost
\nmoment caught in ice of “Outskirts”; the rollicking “I’m Not From
\nHere”; the bitter and poignant “Poor Lost Soul”; and, perhaps best
\nof all, the gentle, wistful, and sad love song “Angeline”.<\/p>\n
James McMurtry is one of the greatest artists in American music
\ntoday, and
\nToo Long In The Wasteland<\/i> was a brilliant debut. Check it
\nout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6789],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37658","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-james-mcmurtry","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37658"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}