WIN THIS CD!Country-influenced Rock: James McMurtry's Live in Aught-Three

In this past Sunday’s New York Times, there was an article about a new concert memorabilia: live recordings available 1 hour after the show. Oh, man, am I hoping that I can be at a show like that! I love seeing a band play live; I love live recordings; I’ve always wanted to have a recording of a concert that I attended. It’s only happened once so far; John Wesley Harding released, Dynablob 3, recorded live at the Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, CA, the night my wife and I were there. Awesome!

I love live recordings, especially when they give you a chance to hear a live set from an artist you’ve never been able to see in concert. That’s the case with James McMurtry who recently released, Live in Aught-Three. He has his band, the Heartless Bastards, lay down a bluesy groove of country-influenced rock, drawing from McMurtry’s early and late albums.

Recorded at the Zephyr, Salt Lake City; 12th & Porter, Nashville, TN; John Barleycorn’s, Wichita, KS; and the Orange Peel, Asheville, NC; the album brings the entire clubs with it. The recording gives just enough of the atmosphere of the space to give you the sense of the setting: dark, beer-soaked, intimate, drifting cigarette smoke, nodding heads, and a groove in your hips.

Yet, as with McMurtry’s albums, this is also storytime. Come on, kids, gather around, Cousin James is going to tell you a story. Of course, I suppose these stories aren’t appropriate for the young kids—we’re talking about drinking, divorce, delinquency, and damsels in distress (serious distress). So, naw, put the kids to bed, and Cousin James will have storytime with the adults. Grab a beer (after all, McMurtry says himself, “He’s a beer salesman,” playing music in clubs, keeping people there to go to the bar). Grab a beer, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, and be taken into those worlds that only McMurtry can create through words and songs.

Live in Aught-Three showcases McMurtry’s ability to create that world through his guitar work, electric and acoustic. Ronnie Johnson follows right along, fully developing the sound with his bass and harmony vocals. Darren Hess’s drums does what I have loved since McMurtry’s first album, punctuating the song and story, while also being ready to throw the song into gear and move it down the groove.

This album is also good either as an introduction or a refresher in James McMurtry. A live album like this is a great introduction. Unlike a greatest hits album, these are the songs the band is playing live, the songs that are part of their current message to the world, songs in their latest form and interpretation. It’s also a great refresher for someone like me who had lost track of McMurtry for a number of years. I own the first two albums, Too Long in the Wasteland and Candyland, but then I lost track. Here’s a way to catch up a little bit, to hear some of the songs from the intervening albums.

The acoustic guitar solo on “Rachel’s Song” is so gentle, plucking and twisting and moving through the scale, but it builds to such an intensity—on this tale of loneliness and lost directions. I wish I could do the same thing in preaching. I mean, as a pastor, I want to be able to speak about God’s sadness for our sin while also plucking and twisting and moving through the beauty of God’s love, building to such an intensity that the hearers find the entire hope of Christ opening up before them. I don’t have a guitar (or the ability); I don’t have a band named the Heartless Bastards; I’m not a beer salesman in a club; but there’s got to be something to draw from this, some kind of parallel to be made. I still trying to discover what that is, because if I could preach like McMurtry can tell a story, then I could really proclaim God’s hope of salvation.

The first person to email me the name of one of my favorite songs from Too Long in the Wasteland will win a free copy of the album, Live in Aught-Three. The song was "Outskirts," and the CD goes to singer-songwriter, McMurtry fan, Jonathan Rundman. Please check out his music or some of the devotions I wrote using his music.

Thanks to James McMurtry and Compadre Records for their help with a review copy and one for today’s giveaway.