JAMES MCMURTRY AND THE HEARTLESS BASTARDS
''LIVE IN AUGHT-THREE''
MARCH 23 2004
77:48
1/Saint Mary of the Woods
James McMurtry/6:46
2/Fraulein O.
James McMurtry/3:54
3/Red Dress
James McMurtry/4:59
4/No More Buffalo
James McMurtry/6:52
5/60 Acres
James McMurtry/4:33
6/Rachel's Song
James McMurtry/6:02
7/Out Here Inthe Middle
James McMurtry/5:11
8/Choctaw Bingo
James McMurtry/8:47
9/Lights of Cheyenne
James McMurtry/6:38
10/Levelland
James McMurtry/5:37
11/Max's Theorem
James McMurtry/1:41
12/I'm Not from Here
James McMurtry/5:07
13/Too Long in the Wasteland
James McMurtry/7:55
14/Rex's Blues
Townes Van Zandt/3:46
Daren Hess /Drums
Tim Holt /House Sound
Ronnie Johnson /Bass, Vocal Harmony
James McMurtry /Guitar, Vocals
REVIEW
by Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen
James McMurtry's written plenty of great songs, but he's never made a great album. His character sketches and stories have always rung true, and he's as perceptive a chronicler of the disaffected and alienated as you'll find, but his limited vocal range and sometimes almost-indifferent delivery have made even his best discs, Too Long in the Wasteland and Where'd You Hide the Body a struggle to get through. Live in Aught-Three isn't a great album, but the live setting lets McMurtry and his backing group, the Heartless Bastards, breathe real rock & roll life into many of these songs for the first time. "Levelland," an account of stasis in the fly-over land, aches with a longing for something, anything, that's more exciting than high-school football games and farms, and "Red Dress" burns with an angry intensity that you'd never have guessed McMurtry had in him. We also get a dose of McMurtry's deadpan humor on a few between-song asides ("I used to think I was an artist. Come to find out I'm a beer salesman") and a hilarious delineation between intellectuals and good ol' boys. In fact, the strongest material here -- and McMurtry's best work overall -- are the ones in which he finds both the humor and the pathos in quirky, nasty characters like the ticked-off heir to the worthless farmland of "60 Acres," or the twisted crew at a family reunion in "Choctaw Bingo." If McMurtry's albums haven't caught your attention before, Live in Aught-Three is a perfect opportunity to reassess him.
BIOGRAPHY
by Steve Huey
Too Long in the Wasteland
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. McMurtry also appeared on the soundtrack of the film (Falling from Grace), working with Mellencamp, John Prine, Joe Ely, and Dwight Yoakam in a one-off supergroup called Buzzin' Cousins. McMurtry has continued to record, releasing albums in 1992 and 1995. Walk Between the Raindrops followed in 1998, and 2002 saw the release of Saint Mary of the Woods, his last for the Sugar Hill label. He signed with Compadre the following year, releasing Live in Aught-Three in 2004 and Childish Things in 2005. Just Us Kids appeared in 2008 on Lightning Rod Records, with another concert album, Live in Europe, arriving in 2009.
''LIVE IN AUGHT-THREE''
MARCH 23 2004
77:48
1/Saint Mary of the Woods
James McMurtry/6:46
2/Fraulein O.
James McMurtry/3:54
3/Red Dress
James McMurtry/4:59
4/No More Buffalo
James McMurtry/6:52
5/60 Acres
James McMurtry/4:33
6/Rachel's Song
James McMurtry/6:02
7/Out Here Inthe Middle
James McMurtry/5:11
8/Choctaw Bingo
James McMurtry/8:47
9/Lights of Cheyenne
James McMurtry/6:38
10/Levelland
James McMurtry/5:37
11/Max's Theorem
James McMurtry/1:41
12/I'm Not from Here
James McMurtry/5:07
13/Too Long in the Wasteland
James McMurtry/7:55
14/Rex's Blues
Townes Van Zandt/3:46
Daren Hess /Drums
Tim Holt /House Sound
Ronnie Johnson /Bass, Vocal Harmony
James McMurtry /Guitar, Vocals
REVIEW
by Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen
James McMurtry's written plenty of great songs, but he's never made a great album. His character sketches and stories have always rung true, and he's as perceptive a chronicler of the disaffected and alienated as you'll find, but his limited vocal range and sometimes almost-indifferent delivery have made even his best discs, Too Long in the Wasteland and Where'd You Hide the Body a struggle to get through. Live in Aught-Three isn't a great album, but the live setting lets McMurtry and his backing group, the Heartless Bastards, breathe real rock & roll life into many of these songs for the first time. "Levelland," an account of stasis in the fly-over land, aches with a longing for something, anything, that's more exciting than high-school football games and farms, and "Red Dress" burns with an angry intensity that you'd never have guessed McMurtry had in him. We also get a dose of McMurtry's deadpan humor on a few between-song asides ("I used to think I was an artist. Come to find out I'm a beer salesman") and a hilarious delineation between intellectuals and good ol' boys. In fact, the strongest material here -- and McMurtry's best work overall -- are the ones in which he finds both the humor and the pathos in quirky, nasty characters like the ticked-off heir to the worthless farmland of "60 Acres," or the twisted crew at a family reunion in "Choctaw Bingo." If McMurtry's albums haven't caught your attention before, Live in Aught-Three is a perfect opportunity to reassess him.
BIOGRAPHY
by Steve Huey
Too Long in the Wasteland
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. McMurtry also appeared on the soundtrack of the film (Falling from Grace), working with Mellencamp, John Prine, Joe Ely, and Dwight Yoakam in a one-off supergroup called Buzzin' Cousins. McMurtry has continued to record, releasing albums in 1992 and 1995. Walk Between the Raindrops followed in 1998, and 2002 saw the release of Saint Mary of the Woods, his last for the Sugar Hill label. He signed with Compadre the following year, releasing Live in Aught-Three in 2004 and Childish Things in 2005. Just Us Kids appeared in 2008 on Lightning Rod Records, with another concert album, Live in Europe, arriving in 2009.
