{"id":27418,"date":"2025-10-30T06:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T06:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/27418\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T06:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T06:46:10","slug":"the-wandering-boy-never-flinches-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/27418\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wandering Boy Never Flinches \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Local critic asks another: \u201cHow\u2019s the McMurtry?\u201d Answer: cut-above songs and then the clutch killers. South Austin\u2019s James McMurtry<\/a> crosses over into permanently mortal territory on The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy. First missive since deep pandemic, his 11th studio album notches all the benchmarks \u2013 audiobook tunes, roadhouse Texicana, existential reality \u2013 of a typically burning McMurtry lament: aging, America, small miracles and giant fuckups wrought through arrested development governed by naive morality. Bookended by Jon Dee Graham and Kris Kristofferson covers; produced by jangle-pop pioneer Don Dixon; recorded by the equally genius Stuart Sullivan at Wire Recording in Austin; and guesting BettySoo, Sarah Jarosz, son Curtis McMurtry, Charlie Sexton, and cello MVP Diana Burgess, Black Dog and Wandering Boy never flinches. \u201cI see my father with his patience wearing thin\/ Sometimes it bothers me to look so much like him,\u201d he nods to Larry McMurtry on the title track. Indeed, lines jump out like hares: \u201cYou miss what you\u2019re missing more than you want what you\u2019ve got\u201d (\u201cThe Color of Night\u201d). Twin slayers \u201cPinocchio in Vegas\u201d and \u201cAnnie\u201d deserve miniseries, while seething centerpiece \u201cSons of the Second Sons\u201d documents has-beens who made their names with guns and God: \u201cSalt of the fucking Earth in search of a Caesar.\u201d Crown it with the cover art credit: \u201cDrawing of young James by Ken Kesey.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article appears in October 31 \u2022 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards\u2019 Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews \u2013 first \u201cRecommendeds,\u201d now calendar picks \u2013 his writing\u2019s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore by Raoul Hernandez\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local critic asks another: \u201cHow\u2019s the McMurtry?\u201d Answer: cut-above songs and then the clutch killers. South Austin\u2019s James…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,18906,18907,18908,18909,18910,18911,18912,18913],"class_list":["post-27418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-bettysoo","tag-charlie-sexton","tag-curtis-mcmurtry","tag-diana-burgess","tag-don-dixon","tag-james-mcmurtry","tag-sarah-jarosz","tag-stuart-sullivan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}