James McMurtry has spent 25 years exploring the underbelly of the US heartland with his guitar. But even with his often pointed observations, he doesn't see himself as protest singer.
Back with his first album in six years, "Complicated Games," the Texas-based folk singer offers somber takes on American life -- the United States both of small-town megastores and sweeping scenic beauty -- in songs that at once seem timely and universal.
McMurtry has won acclaim in folk circles but has never built a mass following. The closest came a decade ago when McMurtry took aim at the Bush administration with the 2005 song "We Can't Make It Here," which deplored the economic and social costs of a country embroiled in Iraq.
"I've only written two political songs in all my life," the soft-spoken McMurtry, who sports a grizzled beard and round glasses, told AFP.
"I've only gotten known for one of them, which is okay -- you gotta get known for something. But I was never a political writer. I just happened to get lucky with that one song," he said.
While "Complicated Games" may not be overtly political, McMurtry returns to some of the same themes. "South Dakota" tells of a soldier returning from war to the Great Plains only to learn from his brother that working on the land was no longer a viable profession.
"Ain't Got a Place" offers a tale of personal displacement: "The skies are taller in Louisiana / The skies are wider in New Mexico / The skies in Texas kinda split the difference / They don't suit me no matter where I go / I ain't got a place / I ain't got a place in this world."
The album starts with a melancholy look at the transience of an individual's life and relationships in small-town America. It starts off from a hunter's perspective: "Honey, don't you be yelling at me when I'm cleaning my gun / I'll wash the blood off the tailgate when deer season's done."
- Everyday inspirations -
McMurtry, unsurprisingly when hearing the music, is a devoted fan of late folk legend Johnny Cash whom he first saw at age seven when his mother took him to a show in Richmond, Virginia.
McMurtry, who turns 53 on March 18, says that his musical inspirations are less Washington politics or the daily news but more the everyday realities that he, like anyone, feels.
"My source of inspiration? Worrying about not being hungry and having a job to pay the bills," he said. Being a singer "is just a job like any other, and I do fairly well."
McMurtry may be best known as the son of writer Larry McMurtry, who wrote popular Western novels such as "Lonesome Dove" and "Terms of Endearment" and co-authored the Oscar-winning screenplay for the gay cowboy drama "Brokeback Mountain."
James McMurtry, with a niche following in the United States, is even less known in Europe. But he is hopeful that his songs will appeal more to a European audience.
"Being a musician now is very much being like a travelling salesman; you have to find more territories to sell your words," he said in the interview at a Paris hotel, a glass of red wine in his hand.
"Most of the income we make now is from the road. We need to get to Europe. The record sales ain't what they use to be. ... We make our living on live performance mostly," he said.
Source: AFP