Singer-songwriter James McMurtry specializes in rootsy music with a storytelling slant

If you’re from Texas and your last name is “McMurtry,” it seems likely that you might have a way with words.

Novelist Larry McMurtry, who died in March 2021 at age 84, won a huge literary following with books including “The Last Picture Show,” “Terms of Endearment” and “Lonesome Dove,” the last of which netted him a Pulitzer Prize.

McMurtry’s son, James McMurtry, is an accomplished singer-songwriter in the roots music genre whose songs regale listeners with tales of ordinary people, many unhappy or unlucky.

Both McMurtrys use language to tell stories, but as James sees it, the similarities are not obvious.

“He didn’t write verse, and I rarely try to write prose,” said James McMurtry, 60, who will perform from his recent album, “The Horses and the Hounds,” next Wednesday at Skully’s Music-Diner.

“Maybe there is a storytelling aspect; maybe it’s a similar thing,” said McMurtry, who was born in Texas, as was his father, but was brought up in Virginia. He currently lives in Lockhart, Texas, which is located south of Austin.

Summer events guide: Columbus Summer Fun 2022: Our events guide to concerts, festivals, theater, arts and more

“But a song has to have music as well,” he said. “A song is not poetry. It’s written to be sung.”

McMurtry's songwriting process

Over the years, McMurtry has learned which words sound good when sung, and which don’t quite work.

“Voice training really helped me with that,” he said. “A good voice coach will teach you to avoid certain diphthongs, certain consonants, because they’ll tongue-tie you and slow the whole thing down.”

Not that McMurtry’s compositional process is overly academic. Most of his songs, he said, start merely with a melody and a few lines.

“If it’s cool, it’ll keep me up where I’m compelled to keep messing with it until it turns into a song,” he said. “I’ve mostly worked from a scrap pile over (the) years.”

That’s how the music in “The Horses and the Hounds” took shape, too.

In June of 2019, McMurtry got word from a producer that Jackson Browne’s recording studio, Groove Masters in Santa Monica, California, was available during a 10-day window.

Concerts: June outdoor concerts, festivals in Ohio: Kenny Chesney, Darius Rucker among performers

“I hustled some songs together, and we went out there and tracked it,” McMurtry said. “I was just trying to finish enough songs to make a record. I don’t go into anything with a theme in mind.”

Due to coronavirus delays and other hiccups, the album did not make its debut until last August.

How McMurtry's music career took shape

“The Horses and the Hounds” is McMurtry’s 13th record, an impressive milestone for a career that began with a bit of good luck.

McMurtry began writing songs at 18 — “Just because I wanted to be Kris Kristofferson when I grew up,” he said — but it wasn’t until his mid-20s that he managed to get his music to John Mellencamp, who had hired Larry McMurtry to write a screenplay.

“John didn’t want to cut any of the songs, but he liked the songs and was, I guess, looking for something to do and somehow just decided to produce my record,” said McMurtry, whose debut album, “Too Long in the Wasteland,” came out in 1989.

Thirty-three years later, McMurtry is still assembling those scraps of paper and dreaming up characters to match his words.

“You hear the line, you think, ‘Who said that?’” he said. “Then you try to envision the character. . . . You work backwards from the lines to the character to the story.”

tonguetteauthor2@aol.com

At a glance

Singer-songwriter James McMurtry will perform at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Skully’s Music-Diner, 1151 N. High St. Tickets cost $25. For more information, visit www.skullys.org.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: James McMurtry to perform Wednesday June 16 at Skullys Music-Diner