Dallas: James McMurtry with BettySoo at Granada Theater
November 13 @ 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
$150
Master storyteller James McMurtry plays the Granada Theater in Dallas on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, with support from fellow Austin songwriter BettySoo. Tickets start at $150, and the show is close to selling out.
Born in Fort Worth and raised largely outside Texas, McMurtry is the son of novelist Larry McMurtry, author of “Lonesome Dove” and “The Last Picture Show.” He grew up around books and writers, and that literary instinct shaped him into one of American music’s sharpest narrative songwriters. His break came in 1987, when he was a finalist at the Kerrville Folk Festival’s songwriting competition; his father later passed a tape of James’s songs to musician John Mellencamp, who was impressed enough to produce his 1989 debut, “Too Long in the Wasteland.”
James McMurtry and the Texas Songwriter Scene
McMurtry’s detailed, cinematic songs, including the sprawling family-reunion epic “Choctaw Bingo,” have made him a favorite among the same audience that fills rooms for the kind of literate Texas songwriting championed by artists like Guy Clark. Opener BettySoo, a Korean American singer-songwriter raised in Spring, Texas, cut her teeth at Austin’s Cactus Cafe before releasing acclaimed records like 2009’s “Heat Sin Water Sin,” produced by Gurf Morlix, and has built her own reputation as a sharp, soulful writer in that same tradition.
McMurtry’s live shows are known for their intensity and detail, songs that unfold like short stories and a band that plays them with a rock edge. With tickets running short for this date, fans who want to catch two of Texas’s best storytelling songwriters on one stage should move quickly.
Doors open at 7 p.m. for the 8 p.m. show. The Granada Theater sits at 3524 Greenville Ave. in Lower Greenville, one of Dallas’s most walkable live-music strips, with plenty of bars and restaurants nearby for dinner before the show.