SANTA CRUZ >> James McMurtry knows exactly when the time is right to make a new album: When the tours start winding down, that is when he gets into the studio.

“That’s kind of what drives it nowadays,” he said. “It used to be we toured just to promote record sales. Now it’s kind of the other way around because there are no record sales.”

Thus, the time is right for the Fort Worth, Texas, native to release a follow-up to 2021’s critically acclaimed “The Horses and the Hounds.” McMurtry’s next album, “The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy,” is due to be released June 20 with the title track already available on streaming platforms. Santa Cruz County residents will have an opportunity to get a taste of the new album, as well as a mix of familiar favorites, eight days earlier when he returns to the Rio Theatre.

Since his 1989 debut album “Too Long in the Wasteland,” McMurtry has developed a devoted following with his blend of folk, country and Southern rock and story-driven songs that ruminate on the American experience, poverty, politics and numerous other themes.McMurtry’s slice-of-life approach to songwriting continues on “The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy,” the title of which was inspired by his father, novelist Larry McMurtry (“Terms of Endearment,” “The Last Picture Show”) who died in 2021. His stepmother, Faye, said Larry experienced hallucinations toward the end of his life, including one about a black dog and a wandering boy. James McMurtry made that the basis for the album’s title as well as its lead single about a man who sees similar visions.

The phrase is also depicted in the album’s cover art featuring a photograph of one of McMurtry’s dogs next to a drawing of McMurtry as a kid which he later learned was drawn by Ken Kesey, author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Sometimes a Great Notion.”

“Kesey drew that sketch of me when I was probably 4,” he said. “It was among my father’s effects after he died. I had to ask around. Fay Kesey, my stepmom, identified it, said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s Ken’s. He was doing a lot of drawing back then.’ I thought it would work for the cover, so we used it.”

McMurtry co-produced the album along with Don Dixon, who previously worked with him on 1995’s “Where’d You Hide the Body” and was a major player in the ’80s college rock scene, producing albums by the likes of R.E.M., The Smithereens and Marshall Crenshaw. McMurtry was thrilled to work with Dixon again.

“Don’s real easy work with,” he said. “He’s real upbeat, and he saves you a lot of time because he’s got real good instincts about when the take is happening. You don’t have to go into the room and listen to the three takes you just did and try to decide which one’s better. He already knows his is going down.”

Additionally, McMurtry said if Dixon felt something needed fixing, he would have him stay in the studio to punch up a performance.

“That saves you all kinds of time,” he said. “You don’t have to go back and listen to stuff you’re not gonna use.”

As always, the album is filled with sketches of American life, including a two-timing Texas sheriff, a Southern California road trip gone wrong and a man who watches people board the bus and is reminded of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody of a certain Queen song. On “Annie,” he also revisits 9/11 and the legacy of the George W. Bush administration, whom McMurtry previously excoriated on songs like “We Can’t Make It Here” and “Cheney’s Toy,” and acknowledges “We’ve all seen worse now, but his name’s still mud.”

The album is bookended by two covers: Jon Dee Graham’s “Laredo (Small Dark Something)” and Kris Kristofferson’s “Broken Freedom Song.” McMurtry said the former song came about as his band was invited to play a benefit for Graham at an Austin club called Hole in the Wall and used to perform the 2001 track live quite often, but had not covered one of his songs in a while.

“We’re in the studio, we’ve got everything set up and we’ve gotta rehearse,” he said. “We already had the drum sounds dialed in, so we thought we’d just record the rehearsal.”

“Broken Freedom Song” came from McMurtry performing the song while messing around on a baritone guitar in the studio.

“The song sounded good in that tuning, so I just recorded it to a click track and later added bass and drums to it and background vocals,” he said. “At the end of the whole deal after we’d recorded everything and mixed, the two cover songs were better than the three originals that we’d cut. Basically, the covers made the top 10, and together, it all seemed to make a coherent record.”

McMurtry likes the tracking process. The song “Back to Coeur d’Alene” originally started with just him singing over a 12-string guitar, and then drummer Daren Hess and bassist Bonnie Whitmore were brought in to provide rhythm. Grammy-nominated singer Sarah Jarosz also performed background vocals on “Annie.”

“I’m not particular about the process in recording,” he said. “I’m more interested in the result.”

June 12 will mark a return for McMurtry to Santa Cruz where he has performed and even name checked the city and the “white-knuckle ride” that is Highway 17 on the song “Canola Fields.” In fact, he said the song about a drive through Alberta, Canada, in the summer when canola plants bloom was born out of a lyric he had written about the “second best surfer on the Central Coast.”

“I had that line,” he said. “I just had to put that in a song. I pretty much built that whole song around that line.”

McMurtry said Santa Cruz shows are always well-attended.

“KPIG has made it a good market for us,” he said.

McMurtry said audiences can expect “a pretty rockin’ bar band.” Opening will be singer BettySoo who also sings background vocals on five of the new album’s songs and even plays accordion and tambourine on “Back to Coeur d’Alene.”

“That’s kind of morphing into a duo thing,” he said. “I sit on her set a little bit. Me and Daren, the drummer, we do two songs with her at the end of her set and she sings a few songs with us because she’s all over the record. It’s been an interesting evolution.”

The concert is 8 p.m. June 12 at the Rio, 1205 Soquel Ave. Doors open at 7. Tickets are $42 and can be purchased at EventBrite.com.

“The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy” will be released June 20 by New West Records.