{"id":133997,"date":"2026-01-27T21:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/133997\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T21:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:25:13","slug":"before-tampa-show-james-mcmurtry-recalls-the-best-gig-he-ever-saw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/133997\/","title":{"rendered":"Before Tampa show, James McMurtry recalls the best gig he ever saw"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AJames McMurtry, who plays Skipper\u2019s Smokehouse in Tampa, Florida on Jan. 31, 2026. Credit: Mary Keating-Bruton<\/p>\n

For his latest album The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy, 63-year-old singer-songwriter James McMurtry leaned on some prominent people from his past. <\/p>\n

The album title alone came from a hallucination his Pulitzer Prize-winning father, Larry, regularly had when he was living with dementia. Larry gave James his first guitar when he was a boy.<\/p>\n

For the production side, he turned to esteemed producer Don Dixon, who had produced his third album, Where\u2019d You Hide the Body, some 30-odd years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for the ten-tracker\u2019s material itself\u2014a healthy mix of electric and acoustic selections\u2014McMurtry depicts a sheriff keeping a second family on the down-low, gives a nod to the children of the often-overlooked second child, and even cites a \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic song. <\/p>\n

Expect to hear plenty of material from that and his other 13 studio albums this weekend at his annual stop at Skipper\u2019s Smokehouse. Hell, maybe Stephen King\u2014a part-time Sarasota resident\u2014will show up.<\/a> And just like last year, folk singer BettySoo opens.<\/p>\n

Before this show, McMurtry told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay about the best concert he ever attended. Read his full quote below.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I lived in San Antonio in the mid-eighties, I used to go see Johnny Clyde Copeland whenever he came through. Johnny was always full on, like he lived every minute of his life cranked up to ten. Every solo screamed, every vocal howled. I once saw him break a string at the top of a solo at the old Saint Mary\u2019s Bar and Grill. Johnny handed the solo off to Frank Rodarte from The West Side Horns, who was sitting in on tenor sax, and then proceeded to change that string in what appeared to be one fluid motion, snatching the new string from the pack, threading it through the back of that white Peavey without unstrapping, and twisting it up to pitch on Rodarte\u2019s last note. No guitar tech necessary. I\u2019ve never come close to emulating Copeland\u2019s level of poise, but I try to remember it whenever technical glitches threaten to rattle me.\u201d -James McMurtry<\/p>\n

Tickets to see James McMurtry play Tampa\u2019s Skipper\u2019s Smokehouse on Saturday, Jan. 31 are still available and cost $30.30.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\tThese locals are shaping what the region sounds like right now.\u00a0\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\tHe\u2019s giving out tickets via Instagram DM.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Bill\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tMike Zito and Albert Castiglia are in the lineup for Bill Murray & His Blood Brothers.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

This article appears in Jan. 22 \u2013 28, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James McMurtry, who plays Skipper\u2019s Smokehouse in Tampa, Florida on Jan. 31, 2026. Credit: Mary Keating-Bruton For his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[65653,2081,20235,135,1865,2082,137,136],"class_list":["post-133997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-james-mcmurtry","tag-live-music-in-tampa-bay","tag-skippers-smokehouse","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-concerts","tag-tampa-concerts","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}