Album Review: On “The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy” James McMurtry Has Nothing to Fear

From Americana Highways

James McMurtry has never been one to pull punches, and on The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy, he makes it plain: aging isn’t for the faint of heart. While 2021’s The Horses and the Hounds struck a bittersweet tone about growing older, his latest release dives headlong into the hard truths of time’s toll. “I can’t stand getting old, it don’t fit me,” he growls on the powerful South Texas Lawman. And yet, this album fits him, and these strange days in our country, perfectly.

Now in his early 60s, McMurtry continues to prove that few songwriters—inside or outside Americana—can match his lyrical precision. Like John Prine at his sharpest or Guy Clark at his most plainspoken, McMurtry writes with clarity, compassion, and a healthy dose of bite. The Black Dog finds him at the peak of his powers—wiser, wearier, and unflinchingly honest.

The record opens with Jon Dee Graham’s “Laredo (Small Dark Something),” a junkie’s lament that McMurtry inhabits like it’s his own. “Living in a motel named ‘MOTEL’ out on Refinery Road” might be one of the most McMurtry-esque lines ever written—and he didn’t even write it. The track sets the tone for what follows: characters chasing ghosts, living with regrets, and holding out for a glimmer of redemption.

“South Texas Lawman” sketches a fading sheriff haunted not by crimes but by the quiet unraveling of his life. “His years are empty bottles now / tossed off in the ditch” could be carved on the man’s tombstone. It’s the kind of storytelling McMurtry does better than just about anyone—think Childish Things or Too Long in the Wasteland, now seen through an older man’s eyes.

The title track is inspired by one of his father Larry McMurtry’s dementia-induced hallucinations. “The black dog and the wandering boy come around every night,” he sings, conjuring memory, aging, and loss with aching detail. It’s a late-career standout, cut from the same cloth as “Levelland” and “No More Buffalo,” but quieter, darker, more intimate.

McMurtry’s gift for turning personal fragments into something universal shines on “Pinocchio in Vegas.” He updates the fable for our modern malaise: “Pinocchio’s over it / he don’t beat up on himself / He’s had to learn to be an asshole / just like everybody else.” It’s funny, sharp, and sad all at once.

McMurtry has always been political without preaching, and “Second Sons of Second Sons” is a history lesson as protest song. Its critique of primogeniture and praise for forgotten builders of the American dream recall “Can’t Make It Here” in tone, but with the melodic ease of later-period Springsteen or Steve Earle. It’s an ode to the “overlooked, the younger siblings who helped build a country but rarely make the history books.” It’s melodic, it’s incisive, and like much of McMurtry’s work, it hits harder the more you sit with it.

Then there are the quieter cuts. “Annie,” set in the political fog of the early 2000s, reminds us McMurtry is also a criminally underrated vocalist. Sarah Jarosz’s harmony and banjo work here is nothing short of spellbinding. “Back to Coeur d’Alene” might be the best song ever written about the daily hustle of a working musician—its chorus a haunting mantra: “Gotta get known / Gotta get known.”

Don Dixon, who produced McMurtry’s Where’d You Hide the Body? back in 1995, returns to helm The Black Dog with a light but sure touch. The production never gets in the way of the songs—it simply gives them room to breathe. The core band (BettySoo, Cornbread, Tim Holt, Daren Hess) is stellar, and guests like Charlie Sexton, Bukka Allen, Bonnie Whitmore, and Jarosz all shine without ever stealing focus.

The album closes with Kris Kristofferson’s “Broken Freedom Song,” a wounded soldier’s homecoming set to a slow burn. With BettySoo on harmony vocals, it’s a perfect final note—raw, unflinching, and deeply humane. Like Kristofferson, one of his heroes and biggest influences, McMurtry captures America’s complicated soul in a way few others can.

McMurtry has said, “A song can come from anywhere, but the main inspiration is fear. Specifically fear of irrelevance.” The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy is proof that he has nothing to fear.

Enjoy our previous coverage here: Interview: James McMurtry on the State of the Union, Songwriting Process, Fishing, and Recent Tour with Jason Isbell and his column with Americana Highways here: WASTELAND BAIT & TACKLE: Try This

Musicians on the album are James McMurtry on lead vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, 8-string acoustic baritone guitar, and 12-string acoustic guitar; Tim Holt on electric guitar and backing vocals, (electric guitar solo on “The Color of Night”); Cornbread on bass (electric guitar solo on “The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy”); and Daren Hess on drums; with BettySoo on backing vocals on “The Color of Night”, “Back to Coeur d’Alene”, “Sailing Away”, “Pinocchio in Vegas”, acoustic guitar and backing vocal on “Broken Freedom Song”, accordion and tambourine on “Back to Coeur d’Alene” ; Jim Brock on drums on “Broken Freedom Song” ; Don Dixon on bass on “Broken Freedom Song”, trombones and slide guitar on “South Texas Lawman”, tremolo guitar on “Sailing Away” and “Broken Freedom Song”, little things here and there; Sarah Jarosz on harmony vocal, banjo on “Annie”; Pat Macdonald on harmonica and backing vocal on “Laredo (Small Dark Something)”, and harmonica on “The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy”; Curtis McMurtry on harmony vocal and banjo on “Pinocchio in Vegas” ; Diana Burgess on cello on “South Texas Lawman”, “The Color of Night”, “Pinocchio in Vegas”, “Annie”, and ”Sailing Away”; Sam Pankey on upright bass on “Pinocchio in Vegas”; Charlie Sexton – cum-bus (pronounced jumbush, really and truly, Turkish instrument) on “Sons of the Second Sons” ; Bukka Allen on organ on “The Color of Night” and “Sailing Away” ; Bonnie Whitmore on bass on “Back to Coeur d’Alene” ; and Red Young on organ on “Back to Coeur d’Alene.”