James McMurtry

James McMurtry brings his keen-eyed storytelling to Union Chapel, 19b Compton Terrace, London, on 13 October 2026. The Texas songwriter builds whole worlds out of small details: a sheriff riding out with a secret, a mechanic tallying up spare parts and promises, a man shadowed by a black dog and a wandering boy. These figures haunt his latest album The Black Dog & the Wandering Boy (New West), where rolling guitars, ragged harmonies and hints of banjo and harmonica frame lyrics that read like short stories pulled from family scraps and long-held notes.

On stage, McMurtry leans into that plainspoken delivery and steady groove with his trusted band — Cornbread on bass, Tim Holt on guitar, Daren Hess on drums, BettySoo on harmonies — letting songs unfold at their own pace. The set threads new material shaped with producer Don Dixon alongside decades-deep favorites, and he sometimes nods to fellow writers with covers like Jon Dee Graham’s Laredo or Kris Kristofferson’s Broken Freedom Song. A rare European stop, this London date promises character-driven songs that breathe, drift and hit close to the bone, drawn with a handful of chords and a sharp eye for the everyday.