James McMurtry is the son of Larry McMurtry, the acclaimed author of “Lonesome Dove,” which won the Pulitzer Prize. It was Larry who gave James his first guitar when the boy was seven, and his mother who taught him to play.
He started performing as a teenager, and was in Tucson at the University of Arizona when he started appearing locally, playing his own compositions. In 1987 in San Antonio, a friend told McMurtry he should enter the Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk songwriter contest. He did and was one of the winners.
Almost simultaneously, John Mellencamp was working on a film McMurtry’s father had written, and James took the opportunity to send Mellencamp a demo Tape. The latter was impressed and helped produce “Too Long in the Wasteland,” McMurtry’s first album.
To date, McMurtry has released 13 albums, dropped his latest, “The Horses and the Hounds,” in 2021. A review says:
“It’s evident from the way that he masters the guitar that James McMurtry has been playing since he was a child. [He] . . . gave a solid and exciting performance . . .”
James McMurtry will be at Denver’s Globe Hall on October 28. Programs enable audiences to learn about performers as well as serving as mementoes of a great evening, and can be created by event organizers using brochure printing.
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