James McMurtry w/Bonnie Whitmore

It’s a safe bet that James McMurtry has some thoughts about the Trump administration. The acclaimed Texas roots-rocker’s records often play like dispatches from a country at war with itself. John Mellencamp helped McMurtry get his foot in the door, producing the songwriter’s 1989 Columbia Records debut Too Long in the Wasteland, but McMurtry’s subsequent albums have been much more political than that album, including 2005’s Childish Things and 2008’s Just Us Kids, both of which documented George W. Bush-era despair. His most recent album, 2015’s Complicated Game, attracted some of his strongest reviews yet.