A studio portrait of Americana musician James McMurtry sitting against a dark, textured backdrop. He is wearing a grey fedora with a black band, a bright red short-sleeved button-down shirt with gold embroidered vertical panels, and blue jeans. He has long, greyish hair and wears a large turquoise cuff bracelet on his right wrist. He is holding the neck of an Epiphone acoustic guitar resting between his legs, looking directly at the camera with a neutral, steady expression. — James McMurtry, who plays Skipper’s Smokehouse in Tampa, Florida on Jan. 31, 2026. Credit: Mary Keating-Bruton

For his latest album The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy, 63-year-old singer-songwriter James McMurtry leaned on some prominent people from his past.

The album title alone came from a hallucination his Pulitzer Prize-winning father, Larry, regularly had when he was living with dementia. Larry gave James his first guitar when he was a boy.

For the production side, he turned to esteemed producer Don Dixon, who had produced his third album, Where’d You Hide the Body, some 30-odd years ago.

As for the ten-tracker’s material itself—a healthy mix of electric and acoustic selections—McMurtry depicts a sheriff keeping a second family on the down-low, gives a nod to the children of the often-overlooked second child, and even cites a “Weird Al” Yankovic song.

Expect to hear plenty of material from that and his other 13 studio albums this weekend at his annual stop at Skipper’s Smokehouse. Hell, maybe Stephen King—a part-time Sarasota resident—will show up. And just like last year, folk singer BettySoo opens.

Before this show, McMurtry told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay about the best concert he ever attended. Read his full quote below.

“When I lived in San Antonio in the mid-eighties, I used to go see Johnny Clyde Copeland whenever he came through. Johnny was always full on, like he lived every minute of his life cranked up to ten. Every solo screamed, every vocal howled. I once saw him break a string at the top of a solo at the old Saint Mary’s Bar and Grill. Johnny handed the solo off to Frank Rodarte from The West Side Horns, who was sitting in on tenor sax, and then proceeded to change that string in what appeared to be one fluid motion, snatching the new string from the pack, threading it through the back of that white Peavey without unstrapping, and twisting it up to pitch on Rodarte’s last note. No guitar tech necessary. I’ve never come close to emulating Copeland’s level of poise, but I try to remember it whenever technical glitches threaten to rattle me.” -James McMurtry

Tickets to see James McMurtry play Tampa’s Skipper’s Smokehouse on Saturday, Jan. 31 are still available and cost $30.30.