James McMurtryBlack Dog & The Wandering Boy

Rolling guitars, barroom harmonies, and the sharpest story-songs in Americana. McMurtry writes whole lives into a verse, funny and gutting in the same breath, his weathered drawl pulling you in close. There are traces of banjo and harmonica, but the songs are too sly for any tidy label. Sarah Jarosz plays on it; Jason Isbell took him on tour. His eleventh album finds him in a late-career surge. Pour a drink and listen to a master tell you stories.