It Had To Happen

After three albums with Columbia Records that received critical kudos and commercial indifference, Texas songwriter James McMurtry settled in with a strong independent roots music label that better fit his low-key, observational tunes. With country producer Lloyd Maines at the boards, McMurtry’s heartland rock strips down from its dense sometimes overpowering wall of sound and focuses on its roots, alluding to the blues (“Sixty Acres”) and punching up McMurtry’s country twang (“Paris”) until his wry witticisms sound as if he’s become the southern Warren Zevon. The years have put gray in his temples and, by his own account in “Paris,” extra weight on his frame, but his greatest discovery is the simple fact that he’s growing older just like everyone else. The angry young man hits middle age with a bittersweet nod. “No More Buffalo” questions his dreams. “I can’t grow up cause I’m too old now,” he sings in “Peter Pan,” while “Jaws of Life” acknowledges the new aches and pains and how life’s everyday just isn’t like they sell it to us in the movies.

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