No Really. Be My Valentine James McMurtry

James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards wsg/The Dedringers

May 8, 2008

The Magic Bag-Ferndale, MI

Yes, Ryan Adams is my rock and roll crush and Willy Vlautin is my rock and roll/author crush but James McMurtry, well, after seeing him live again I still want him to be my Valentine. If there was any justice in the world this man would be a superstar but since I get the idea he's a private soul who probably wouldn't like that it actually works out.

Writing is, of course, the way of his people so it's no surprise what a skilled songwriter he is but the lyrics really come to life live. The line "And I don't want another drink/I only want that last one again" from "Hurricane Party" had all the people around us nodding in group pleasure at a great line well delivered and hearing the new song "Ruby & Carlos" live finally brought the full import of the lyrics home (Carlos is impotent-duh!).

James' lyrical skill was thrown into even sharper relief in comparison to the openers The Dedringers, who I quickly dubbed "the baby BoDeans", who seemed to be recent graduates from the School of Obvious Rhymes. You don't guess the next word because of the inevitability of good writing, you guess the next word because "cat" rhymes with "hat". They sure are cute though with one brother on electric guitar and one on acoustic-they're like a "Disney Channel goes to Austin" show waiting to happen.

But like the DBT show earlier in the week this second show wasn't as good as the first time I saw him. I don't know if it was weariness (though you'd have to give the man a Red Bull to get him to laconic) or the technical difficulties (several amp fuses were blown) or my own baggage of being at the same place seeing the same performer with the same person who is something completely different to me now but if you were watching closely, as I was, you could see his heart wasn't totally in it especially on the obligatory "hits" segment. Judging by the crowd's collective middle aged dancing and joy I may have been the only one to notice though.

I think I have now reached the point with him, much like another fave, John Hiatt, where what I really want is a command performance. I don't need to hear "Levelland" every time, I'd rather hear something obscure I haven't heard before. But James is far too much of a pro, or a beer salesman as he modestly and cynically refers to himself, to risk letting people down by not doing the song they know best. The bonus, too, of the command performance would be its emphasis on his bittersweet love songs. His political songs are clever and biting but I'm a chick and I like the love songs best, what can I say? When the man has lines like "shine your eyes upon me/whisper long and low/mindful of the longing/that we ever more may know" can you really blame me?

Some reviewers recently have pointed to his distinctive voice as a liability but I couldn't disagree more. True, there won't be a James McMurtry night anytime soon on "American Idol" (though I'd love to see them take on the 12 minute long sexually explicit "Choctaw Bingo") but he doesn't write songs he can't get across. I like that in his voice and playing he sounds distinctive, you always know it's him, yet it never seems repetitive. That, and the empathic heart that produced a great song like "Fireline Road" with it's haunting chorus "forget my name can you/forget my face/gonna lose myself in some finer place/finer places where I'll go/and leave no trace on Fireline Road" makes me say, still, be my Valentine James McMurtry.