James McMurtry, steely eyed chronicler of American life, will be in town at the Highdive this Thursday. Personally, we aren’t going to take a chance of missing the show. His songwriting is so strong that sometimes his strength as a performer and guitar player get lost in the hype. But as his newest release — a CD/DVD documenting highlights of his European tour with backing band the Heartless Bastards shows — the man is a compelling performer. The sense of urgency in his guitar work and rhythm section just make the songs all the stronger. The strength of that performance and the power of his illustrative socio-political writing…well, suffice to say that either one can hit you in the gut. McMurtry was kind enough to speak with us the other afternoon about the new disc, songwriting, radio, and the current state of the country.
Why a live album? Why the DVD?
Well it started out as a DVD project because we happened to play at the Paradiso in Amsterdam and they were set up with a bunch of remote cameras all mounted and ready to go. And there was, at that time, a web streaming company that was doing live shoots in there. They told us they could do that for three grand and multi track the audio so we could mix it properly. But what they didn’t tell me was that they weren’t going to keep the raw footage from all the cameras so we’d not be able to re-edit properly. By the time I got done I realized “I can’t charge money for this video. The audio sounds pretty good though so I’ll make a record out of it. And then I’ll use the better dvd footage as a bonus.”
You seem to write about the blue collar or everyday person — what draws you to that?
Most of the people I’ve known have been that way. Most of my cousins work in the oil fields in North Texas, although I don’t make a very good working stiff myself actually.
It’s pretty clear from some of your writings that you weren’t a fan of the Bush administration. I know you were happy to vote for Obama but what are your feelings now about the current administration and where the country stands?
Well certainly he’s run up against reality pretty hard. I think he thought that because he was so unprecedented he could change the world by his mere presence. I hope he has the ability to learn. I’m not happy with his response to the oil spill but if you put it in historical context — no president since Teddy Roosevelt has ever lifted a finger against big oil. And the elder George Bush certainly did not when the Valdez hit the rocks. You know…that was a surface spill, the Coast Guard could have wrapped that up in about two hours and started bucking it up and that’s the ominous part…it could be that he didn’t want to embarrass his buddies at Exxon, so he left it to them and they dropped the ball. Or it could also be that we were already living in a world where multinational corporations call the shots and governments have no power in the face of them. Certainly we’re living in that world now. I mean that’s the little secret that they don’t want to tell us in the media. Now everybody’s mad at the government for not responding but what can the government do? The government does not have the technology to do anything to a wellhead 5,000 feet under water — neither does the Navy. You know the Navy’s got the stuff to do things down there, but they’re not geared to oil.
And now the same people that are bitching about the government’s lack of response are still clamoring for small government. Well if a government this size can’t do anything…I think in this world we need big government as a hedge against big corporations. Big government is the only thing that can protect the people from multinationals — and probably we’ll have to go a step further. To get any real check on those guys you’re going to have to get global government. Because those corporations are global and they operate with the impunity that the mob once operated with in the early 20th century when there was no FBI. When federal power wasn’t so well consolidated and everything was state laws. The corporations are doing the same thing globally now. You know they might have to deal with some local laws here and there, but they’ve got the money they can buy off pretty much anyone’s government and create local laws as they see fit. You know what needs to happen ultimately — there would have to be a global government that would enforce global environmental laws and global labor laws. That’s the only way we’re going to get it. Now back to politics in my songs, the song that got me known as a political writer was “We Can’t Make It Here”, and the protagonist complains about outsourcing. The only way you’re going to stop outsourcing is if you have a universal living wage that’s enforceable throughout the globe and I don’t see that happening in my great grandchildren’s lifetime. But that is where it has to go.
Do you consider yourself a political songwriter?
No, I happened to write a song that was political in nature that resonated with people because it came along at the right time. Our biggest market for years was in Bangor, Maine. Because Stephen King owns a classic rock station up there and he put it on the radio and in Maine they’ll try that. That’s the only rock radio we ever get. And that got us a lot of listeners. I mean yeah, as opposed to AAA or Americana, which are great formats for me, but in terms of the number of listeners…You get classic rock play, you can fill some seats. So we did that but the reason it worked was because it was in Maine and Maine at that time had lost like 30,000 jobs to outsourcing so that really rang a bell and resonated with people.
Do you consider yourself a rock artist or an Americana artist, or something else entirely?
Well, you see Americana and those terms came along after me. The Americana radio genre came up in the wake of the disintegration, the reformulation, of AAA [Adult Album Alternative]. Also I was recording before there was AAA. AAA kind of saved me from AOR. My first records were pushed to AOR — Adult Oriented Rock. That was all about giving the DJs the freedom to play anything off the whole album, they didn’t just have to play the single. Well, that quickly became subverted where it became kind of a low rent top 40 because you’d send these albums out but they’d sticker them with ‘play this track’ and with ‘AOR emphasis’ tracks which you didn’t have to spend so much money for and then pretty soon AAA kind of became classic rock. As AOR had done. AOR by the time I came along — you really couldn’t break a new artist that way. Even if you got rotation you’d be competing against 20 year old Rolling Stones tracks. So you couldn’t get the kind of rotation that would really do it. AAA came up and I think I had the first number one AAA song. At that time there were 25 stations reporting. Within a year or two that had grown up into a full blown format and all the major labels had departments to market to it and then a little while after that Americana came up and so I got into it.
What was the impetus for you to start playing and writing?
I didn’t really start finishing songs until I was in my 20s. I can tell that when I really wanted to do it was when I saw Kris Kristofferson play in Richmond, VA about 1973, mmm, 71 or 72. He had all those hits and Donnie Fritts, Steve Bruton, all those guys, they seemed to be having an absolute blast. That’s when I thought “yeah, that’s what I want to do. I want to do THAT.” He did certainly influence me because he was the first one that was ever identified to me as a songwriter. Up to that time I hadn’t been really concerned where the songs came from. I liked certain artists — I liked Johnny Cash a lot. At first I didn’t care for Bob Dylan but I grew to like him later. My Dad was a big fan early on and I thought “why are you listening to that guy’s voice?” Strange…and then by the time Desire came out, which is still one of my favorite records, that also blew off the top of the idea that he can’t really sing. You can’t listen to “One More Cup of Coffee” and tell me that guy can’t sing.
And you can’t say that about James McMurtry either.
James McMurtry performs at the Highdive on Thursday, July 8, 2010. Doors open at 7:00 p.m., with Jonny Burke playing at 7:30 p.m and James McMurtry at 8:30 p.m. The show carries a $15 cover.