It’s a question that has been puzzling me since last summer, since I first heard “Choctaw Bingo” on the radio: Why do Mainers, specifically northern and eastern Mainers, love James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards so much?

Sure, that first single was a rambling road trip of a song: a sly, deadpan, ZZ Top-meets-Johnny Cash rave-up recounting a family reunion that’s more “Deliverance” than Disney. But everyone loved it. It seemed every time you turned the dial to WKIT 100.3, Bangor’s locally owned classic rock radio station, that song was playing.

It was Stephen King, who owns WKIT, who got the ball rolling. Bobby Russell, general manager of the station, said King stopped by the studio and dropped off “Live in Aught-Three,” McMurtry’s 2004 live album, and suggested they give it a spin.

“‘Choctaw Bingo’ was unlike anything I’d heard at the time,” Russell said. “I remember the first time we played it, people immediately called us up and said, ‘What was that?’ It just snowballed from there.”

Residents quickly began snapping up the album by a Texan songwriter few Mainers were familiar with. Bangor’s Bull Moose Music store could barely keep the album in stock. When McMurtry and his band came up to play at the Grand Auditorium in Ellsworth last August, the show sold out in five hours. He played two more shows at the Grand in February, and again, they both sold out. Tickets for the shows scheduled for this Wednesday and Thursday are almost gone. His latest album, “Childish Things,” is proving to be just as popular as his last one.

“I have never come across an artist that’s inspired this kind of reaction,” said Russell. “I don’t know if it’s in the water or what. He’s played all across the country, but people in this area just love him. It’s very kooky.”

Such a distinctly regional phenomenon is virtually unheard of in today’s corporate-controlled music climate. With more stations swallowed up by Clear Channel Communications Inc., the days of the locally programmed radio broadcast are pretty much over. At those stations, some songs must be played a certain amount of times per hour. There’s little deviation from standard formats. That’s where WKIT stands out as a welcome anomaly, since the station has free license to play, essentially, whatever it wants.

“I know people who work for the big guys all over the country who say, ‘You are so lucky to get to pick the music you play,'” said Russell. “We’re able to play new music that no one else plays, and our listeners love it. They really will go out and listen and embrace new stuff. I think a lot of these big conglomerations are selling their listeners short. People are a lot hipper than they think.”

Breaking in an artist isn’t easy, especially when it’s someone like McMurtry, whose first album was released in 1989 and who has eluded mainstream success. But when one has an independent, open-minded, high-wattage radio station that will take a chance on a particular artist, and when a listening audience is so specifically suited to that artist, it can happen. Considering the fact that those two conditions are very rarely met, the McMurtry phenomenon is quite remarkable, indeed.

Whether it is his lyrics and delivery, his anti-authoritarian streak, or just his awesome country-rock swagger, there’s something about the man that appeals to those of us born and bred in small-town Maine. Rural living is rural living, whether you’re in Arkansas or Aroostook County. McMurtry tells tales of dead-end jobs, backwoods barbecues, hard drinking, hard living and a warped sense of community. It’s the crazy flip side of country living, and it’s not always pretty, but it’s reliably entertaining. And much like the circumstances of the artist’s rise to fame in Maine, it’s not like anything else out there.

James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards will perform at the Grand Auditorium in Ellsworth at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 26, and Thursday, Oct. 27. Tickets are $22, and as of 5 p.m. Thursday were available through the box office at 667-9500 or online at www.grandonline.com. McMurtry will make an in-store appearance at Bull Moose Music on Hogan Road in Bangor at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Information on James McMurtry can be found at www.jamesmcmurtry.com. Emily Burnham can be reached at eburnham@bangor

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