Peak of the Week Thursday at 8pm: James McMurtry – The Horses and the Hounds

Is there a better storyteller in song these days than James McMurtry? His characters and landscapes come to life, in a very different yet similarly successful way that his father Larry McMurtry, the novelist who died this Spring, was able to create. His new (and 10^th) album, now on New West Records, features two associates from his first two albums: guitarist David Grissom and engineer Ross Hogarth. “There’s a definite Los Angeles vibe to this record,” McMurtry says. “The ghost of Warren Zevon seems to be stomping around among the guitar tracks. Don’t know how he got in there. He never signed on for work for hire.”