John Murry
Hailing from Tupelo, Mississippi; John Murry’s solo debut album ‘The Graceless Age’ is imbued with the ghosts of the Southern states and the personal demons that have haunted him throughout his life. He has described himself as more absorbed in the world of literature than in the day-to-day concerns of the modern world, and for good reason: he's second cousin to William Faulkner and has spent much time with his second cousin's work.
Murry says, "I am, in truth, named for his grandfather, my great-great-grandfather. My granddaddy, Charles 'Bo' Murry, is buried about ten feet from him in Oxford, MS, and was his pallbearer. My plot is paid for and is adjacent to it."
Murry first appeared on record in collaboration with cult Memphis folk singer Bob Frank. Their album of murder ballad duets – “World Without End” – was released in 2006 to widepsread critical acclaim; David Fricke (Rolling Stone) describing it as "all bullets, blades and guilt without end".
‘The Graceless Age’ was produced in San Francisco by Murry and Tim Mooney of American Music Club, who sadly passed away in 2012. Murry moved to California in 2003; things didn’t turn out as he planned, and the resulting songs on this album deal with the harsh truths of love, life and loss. His long battle with drug addiction is documented graphically in the epic “Little Coloured Balloons”, recalling an overdose where he was clinically dead in a San Francisco hotel room for several minutes.
Throughout these songs, retold in the key of heartbreak, there is a strong and abiding sense of salvation and reconciliation. ‘The Graceless Age’ is a multi-layered listen that reveals itself further with each and every revisit, and it’s an album that unflinchingly exposes John Murry’s pain and loss through songs that are translucent vessels of both beauty and light.
Arguably as rich and vivid as any Steinbeck novel on the double-edged futility of the American Dream, ‘The Graceless Age’ is an engrossing listen and marks the immediate arrival of a hugely gifted, lyrically rich new songwriter.
Following its limited release in 2012; ‘The Graceless Age’ will be released by Rubyworks as a special deluxe edition 2CD set featuring six previously unreleased bonus tracks.
